


dug out of the hillside

by fairyhill



Category: Mabel (Podcast), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fae, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Canon Asexual Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Horror, M/M, Major Character Undeath, but knowing me that's not often the case, i try to update every monday, so take that with a grain of salt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 43,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25188586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairyhill/pseuds/fairyhill
Summary: Martin Blackwood knew something was wrong with the Sims house, but he took the job as live-in nurse for Gertrude Robinson anyway. He didn't mean to find out about the hundreds of unopened letters addressed to Gertrude by a woman named Agnes Montague. He didn't mean to find out about the King Under The Hill or his consort, Peter Lukas. He didn't mean to find out about Gertrude’s missing grandson, Jon — and he certainly didn't mean to fall in love with him.Chapter 18: In which Jon and Agnes open a trapdoor, and Martin gets lost again.
Relationships: Agnes Montague/Gertrude Robinson, Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 393
Kudos: 348





	1. lost connection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which the hunt begins.** Featuring: memories, ghosts, the Past, and the finding of things never meant to be found.
> 
> ( _Or, Martin has some questions._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can now experience this fic IN STEREO by listening to [this playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5YDik2kCtC76wE5rG0TnFj)!

_Jonathan Sims speaking. I’m not here to answer your call right now, but please leave a message after the beep and I’ll be sure to get back to you as soon as I can._

**BEEP**

* * *

Hi, Mr. Sims. My name is Martin Blackwood, with Magnus Falls Home Help? I’m sorry if this is a bit unorthodox, but I found your number behind — it doesn’t matter, it’s not important. I’m calling because— Well, it’s regarding your grandmother. She’s fine, or as fine as can be given the circumstances. This isn't, this isn't that kind of call.

I was hoping to talk to you but you don’t seem to be available, so if you could please call back on this number, that would be just great. I'm free every day from two until five, and after nine in the evening. Thanks. Thank you for your time. Bye.

_End of message._

* * *

Hi Mr. Sims, it’s Martin Blackwood again. It’s been four days since I called you, and I haven’t gotten an answer so I’m, um, hoping that you accidentally deleted my message or maybe called the wrong number — just in case, my cell number is [CENSORED] so, um. Maybe you’re just really . . . busy? You could be on a backpacking trip around Europe, or dead in a ditch for all I know.

Which I definitely wouldn’t want. That sounded really weird, I’m sorry. Or family problems, maybe. I just . . . please call me back. Whenever you can. Please. Thank you. Bye.

_End of message._

* * *

“—kettle was overheating, sorry Gertrude, you were saying? Oh, oh! That makes perfect sense, actuall—”

_End of message._

* * *

Martin Blackwood. Just trying to reach you. Again.

_End of message._

* * *

Hi, Jon. It’s me again. I don’t know if you got my last two messages, so I’m calling again. Please get back to me when you can.

_End of message._

* * *

I just wanted to know about the letters. I promise that’s _all_.

_End of message._

* * *

Okay, so here’s the thing. Your grandmother, Gertrude, she loves to talk. She's still sharp as a tack, you know. She has good days and bad days, and worse days when she can hardly get out of bed because of the pain in her joints, and some days are very _good_ and she’s energetic and— Sorry, I’m rambling. 

My point is that she remembers more about her life than even I do. She has _so_ many stories to tell. She likes to joke sometimes that she never talked much when she was a kid so she’s trying to get it all out now, before it's too late. Anyway, she loves to tell me things, and one of her favourite topics is, well, um, _you_.

The day I first got here, she showed me all the photographs on her mantle and told me about each one of them. The one she loves the most is a photo of you. It’s a candid shot of you as a kid, and you’re sitting in a tire swing. It’s a sunny day and the light is in your eyes, and you’re looking at— something. Something out of the frame, and you look so . . . _expectant,_ Jon, like you’re waiting for something horrible or maybe wonderful to show itself. 

So this is a weird situation, right? Because I know a lot about you. In a way, you’re like a character from a novel to me. I know you’re a, a real person, don’t get me wrong. But the way Gertrude talks about you, the way she paints you in all her narratives— Everything I know about you is second-hand. It’s sort of like me calling, say, Jane Eyre, or Bilbo Baggins. It’s surreal. But even stranger than that is the fact that I can hear your voice. I hear it every time I call, isn’t that funny?

I think it's pretty funny.

[ _A bump._ ]

 _Ow._ Sorry, bumped into a table. This house is so _full._ Not in a messy kind of way, I’ve never felt like it was messy. Besides, what am I for? It’s the sort of house that’s worth having a lot of stuff in. Like it would be wrong not to. I don’t think I’ve ever even been in a house this big — Before coming here, I worked for this little old lady who had three floors and a mezzanine, which I thought was the most decadent thing ever. You must’ve had the best time here as a kid.

And see, the reason I’ve been trying to get a hold of you is because Gertrude has . . . something I wanted to know about. Something I _can't_ ask her about. And I thought, who better to ask than you? She has— Jon, Gertrude has—

_End of message._

* * *

Hey, it’s—

I’m sorry if I’m being— I don’t know what I'm being. Pushy, or rude. Maybe just plain crazy.

You could tell me to stop, you know? Just one call. Even just a text telling me to shut up and, and never talk to you again— I would. I would delete your number, whatever you wanted, I promise.

But I think you know that already.

Gertrude gave me your mother’s old room to stay in, while I’m here. I feel like it’s important for you to know that. It hasn’t been changed a bit from the photo I found of her sitting in here. The same wallpaper, the same furniture, the same little trinkets on the shelves. All her books are still on her bookshelf. Classics like ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. I guess reading must run in the family. Gertrude told me you work — worked? — for the local library. It sounds like a good job. It suits you. 

I like my job, you know? I chose it for myself. I like people, I like helping them, but it’s a weird way to live. Always in someone else’s house, waiting for them to die so I can move on and do the same thing over again. Always in flux. Always in stasis. If you think about it, it’s not living. Not really. Even when the relief-carer, Michael, is over, I’m not really off-duty. I can’t go into town and have a drink, or play my music really loud in my room. Not that I’d want to do either of those things normally, but it’s the principle of the thing.

What am I saying?

_End of message._

* * *

To hell with it.

Jon, a few weeks ago, a day or so before my first call, Gertrude asked me to go up into the attic to get a box of old Christmas lights that she’d been meaning to donate. She said she’d do it herself if it weren’t for, well, you know.

Gertrude doesn’t really go up into the attic because the ladder’s hard to climb, so I’d never gone, either. Someone, probably Gertrude’s husband, had tried to make it a bit more organized by setting up a bunch of plywood walls to separate things from other things. The end-result was just this maze at the top of the house. A labyrinth of forgotten things. The lights were supposed to be in a closed box labelled ' _Christmas_ ‘98' in sharpie. I found the box not too far in, so I grabbed it and brought it downstairs so Gertrude could take a look before I put it in my car.

She was in the kitchen, so I brought it there. I gave her the knife. The box was in her lap, and she was the one who opened the flaps, so I couldn’t see what was in it right away. It was small, way too small to be any lights worth donating, but I hadn’t told her so. Figured it wasn't my place to say. The second — the _moment_ — she opened that thing, I _knew_ it wasn’t Christmas lights.

Her eyes got wide, really wide. She stared for so long that I got scared. I got up to see inside but that was when she—

Jon, she opened her mouth and she started _screaming_.

I’ve seen my fair share of awful things. I’ve seen the horror show that is growing old. I’ve seen panic attacks and anxiety attacks and Alzheimer’s and dementia. But nothing like that from Gertrude, stoic, put-together Gertrude, and it scared the _shit_ out of me. Gertrude dropped the box to the floor so that whatever was in it, papers, I thought at the time, spilled out. I didn’t look. I got to her and she was still screaming, this horrible, gut-wrenching sound like she was being torn apart.

I got her out of that room, away from that box, as fast as I could. I carried her all the way up to her bedroom. She’d stopped screaming by then and was just taking in these huge, heaving breaths. She wouldn’t say anything until I’d put her down in bed. She looked up at me with those smart eyes of her and she said—

_She dug herself out of the mountains for me._

I told her I didn’t understand, but she didn’t say anything else.

I made her some tea, eventually. She didn't drink it. We just sat there in silence until she fell asleep.

I stayed by her side until about ten in the evening. I couldn't fight the urge any longer. Maybe it wasn't right of me to do it, but I don't— I don't think I could've stopped myself if I'd wanted to.

I got to the kitchen and the papers were still there, all over the floor. I'd been expecting them to have vanished. Stupid, I know, but. . . .

They were letters, Jon, so many of them, _hundreds_ of them. Not a single one of them had been opened. All of them had been sealed with a single red lipstick mark. All of them had the same words on the front:

_Agnes Montague. From Fairy Hill._

Jon, I—

_Jonathan Sims’ inbox is currently full. Please try again later._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave a kudos or, better yet, a comment if you enjoyed. they make me very happy and i will love you forever!!
> 
> this fic is based off the truly phenomenal [mabel podcast](https://mabelpodcast.com) written by becca de la rosa & mabel martin. give it a listen if you like wlw horror!
> 
> find me on [tumblr](https://fairy-hill.tumblr.com).


	2. strange prophecies, stranger prophets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which nothing is made clear.** Featuring: a storybook, odd dreams, a man with a warning.
> 
> ( _Or, Martin meets someone vaguely familiar._ )

_Jonathan Sims speaking. I’m not here to answer your call right now, but please leave a message after the beep and I’ll be sure to get back to you as soon as I can._

**BEEP**

* * *

There's a man in the street.

He's been there for— God, I'm not sure _how_ long. Since this morning, at least. He was there when Gertrude and I came downstairs for breakfast, and as far as I know, he's been there since. It's eight in the morning right now, and Gertrude's in the kitchen listening to the radio. I'm supposed to be cleaning, but I'm camped out by the sitting room window instead, watching him watching his phone.

It's raining outside, hard, and he's underneath a streetlight, playing around on his cell and smoking a cigarette. He's not looking through the windows with a pair of binoculars or taking pictures, or doing anything— I don't know, _threatening_. Nothing about him indicates a desire to do harm.

But see, the thing is, this is the only house on this road for a kilometre or two. There's nobody out here but us. And he can't be looking at the scenery or something because he's standing right in front of the house. There's just the road to look at, and my beat-up car, a low brick wall, the front of the building.

How is his cigarette still lit?

_End of message_

* * *

Did I tell you about the dream I had last night?

I dreamed I was in the garden behind the house. The garden here is huge; the house is isolated from the rest of the town up on this hill, so it’s not like there are any neighbours who’d want the space for themselves. Just this huge expanse of green all the way to the mountainside, and the forest creeping down it like some kind of avenging army. It’s a very beautiful garden, but I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you that. I dreamed I was sitting on the swing, looking in the same direction as you were, all those years ago. Looking at the woods.

And out of the woods came you.

I know what you look like, now. I’ve seen your Twitter profile, but I promise I’m not stalking you or anything like that.

You looked so . . . real, like something I could touch, like my hand wouldn’t just pass through you if I tried. You walked all the way over to me, your dark hair overgrown, your pants and sweater streaked with mud.

When you smiled, your teeth were sharp and white.

You touched my face with your ice-cold hands, a cold so awful that I could feel it in my bones, could still feel it hours later.

“Martin,” you said, almost kindly. “You will die alone, watching the blood seep out of you. You will die clutching at the broken bones in your throat, and no matter how many years pass between this moment and that one, you will remember.”

And then I woke up.

What does that even _mean_ , Jonathan Sims? Who _are_ you?

[ _The sound of a distant doorbell ringing._ ]

What . . . ?

_End of message._

* * *

I know you’re listening. Your inbox was full last week, I remember. So I know you’re listening to me. Or maybe you deleted all my messages and didn’t listen to a single one, but I like to think— I like to think that I know you, Jon, however vaguely. And I like to think that you’re not the sort of person who’d just ignore someone like that.

It was the man who rang the doorbell, at exactly ten fifteen. I opened it and there he was, and I might've been scared if he looked in any way scary. Mostly he just looked like someone's dad, tired and waiting to go home so he could watch TV. He looked— He looked familiar? Like I'd seen him before, somehow.

It was still raining.

"Hello?" I asked him. He just stared at me for a few seconds, let ash fall from his cigarette.

"I'm sorry to disturb you like this," he said to me. "But I'm so lost. Could you tell me how to get to [CENSORED]?"

I told him how to get into town. Jon, he'd been standing in front of the house for at least three hours now. But hey, if that's what he's going with, if he's going to say he's lost, I'll buy it. 

"Thank you. Seriously," he said.

I told him it was no problem, but he still wasn't leaving.

"Sorry," I asked him, "did you need anything else?"

I would've told him to leave outright, but something stopped me. He just . . . Jon, he just looked so _sad_ , like insinuating that his presence made me uncomfortable had broken his heart.

"No," he said. "I was actually just wondering— Have you read this book?" And he held out his phone. His screen was badly cracked, but I could see that it was a photograph of a book, a kid's picture book if I had to guess. It was called 'A Guest For Mr. Spider'.

"No, I'm sorry but I haven't," I told him.

He nodded. "Okay. Thank you so much for helping me."

And then he went back. Not _back_ back, just back to the streetlight. Back to the cold and the gray and the wet.

 _Listen_. Can you hear that? It's the sound of the rain. Only, I'm in the library, and that's three floors down from the roof of the house. There's only one window here and yes, I can see the rain but I shouldn't be able to hear it like that, should I?

What— _What_ is making that sound?

_End of message._

* * *

There's no photographs of your mother in this house, Jon. Gertrude doesn't like talking about her. I don't even know what her name is. What her name was?

Actually, I lied to you just now. There's one photo of your mother in the house. I found it while I was cleaning out the closet. It's old and battered; I don't think it would still be here, if anyone had found it before me. In the photograph, your mother is sitting on her bed, in her room, and she's looking right into the camera. She doesn't look much like you — her skin is paler, her hair is straighter, but there's something in her expression that's your exact mirror.

Like she's waiting for something.

The second time the man came back it was three thirty and I made the connection I hadn't made before: This man, this strange man, looked exactly like an older version of you.

"I'm sorry," he said to me. He said _at_ me. He wasn't looking at me when he said it but behind me, into the dark hall, with the strangest expression on his face. "But I'm so lost."

I asked him if he wanted directions into town again, but he shook his head.

"I'm so lost," he said.

I threatened to call the cops on him if he came back.

_I'm so lost._

I'm not going to go to the library. I'm not going to look for 'A Guest For Mr. Spider'.

_End of message._

* * *

The third time the man with your face came back, it was six twenty-four and I forgot everything, Jon, I forgot that I'd said I'd call the police, I forgot that the only people in the house were one old woman in a wheelchair and one tall guy who doesn't like to fight. I forgot everything. He looked into the house behind me and he started to cry, quietly.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But I'm _so lost_."

I reached out to touch him but he stepped back. He said it again — _I'm so lost_ — but this time he mouthed something after, eyes flicking from me to whatever he saw in the darkness behind me and back, and maybe I'm just being paranoid but I swear he said _get out_. 

I opened my mouth to say something but he just shook his head and turned around.

This time, he didn't stop at the streetlight.

_End of message._

* * *

I'm going to go find 'A Guest For Mr. Spider'.

_End of message._

* * *

It's weird, it's like— The book wasn't hidden or anything? It was in the middle of the small shelf of picture books Gertrude keeps in the library.

Did you read any of these when you were a kid, Jon?

The book is by a man named Jurgen Leitner, and it has—

_End of message._

* * *

God, this is — messed up, Jon, it's really, really weird. The whole book is about this spider, Mr. Spider, yeah? Starts off innocent enough. The spider's neighbours bring it things, like Mr. Bluebell brings a cake.

But on the next page there's always the words " _Mr_. _Spider does not like it_ " followed by a close-up of neighbor so-and-so's face and they always look— _sickeningly_ worried. And on the next page the neighbor is always gone, but Mr. Spider has gotten noticably bigger.

Jesus.

Listen to the last page: " _Mr. Spider wants another guest for dinner. It is considered polite to knock._ " And Mr. Spider is looking up at the reader.

This is supposed to be a _children's_ book?

Wait, what . . . ?

There's a paper. There's a paper slipped into the inside cover, where there's room for the little blurb about the author.

It's— It looks like a page torn put of an encyclopedia or something. It's a page about hares, but someone's written over it in — Is that _blood_?

No, never mind, it's some kind of reddish-brown ink. But Jon, that's not the weirdest part, not by a long shot. Listen to what it says:

> _Once for the boy in chains,_
> 
> _Twice for the hare of the moon._
> 
> _Thrice for the vigilant one,_
> 
> _Four times too soon, too soon._
> 
> _The hare eats the heart of the moon,_
> 
> _The boy claws his way into the light;_
> 
> _But the king's harp is never unstrung,_
> 
> _And he watches the dance with morbid delight._

I'm— I'm going to put the book back. But I'm keeping the note.

_End of message._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _martin_ : who! are! you! and! what! do! you! want!  
>  _jon's dad (?)_ : bro I am just. I am just standing here.
> 
> anyway, thank you so much for reading! kudos are greatly appreciated, and I'll love you forever if you leave a comment.


	3. fairy hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which a sign is discovered.** Featuring: buried things, a question, a disappearance in the dark.
> 
> ( _Or, Martin isn’t sure if he can take this anymore._ )

_Jonathan Sims speaking. I'm not here to answer your call right now, but please leave a message after the beep and I'll be sure to get back to you as soon as I can._

**BEEP**

* * *

Oh, and listen to this one:

> _I am standing at the top of the stairs and I can see you. You’re in the kitchen, [CENSORED]_ _._
> 
> _You are drinking a glass of water. I want to see you, to hold you, to whisper into your palm; you will not be lost._
> 
> _I am standing at the top of the stairs and I can’t see you anymore because I am burned and you are the only balm that can soothe me. I am standing at the top of the stairs because I am on fire and the only thing fire wants to do is to grow._
> 
> _It is not uncommon for us to eat what we love._

Or this one:

> _You, the pebble in my shoe, the twig in my hair, the moss on my sleeve. Tell me, why do you stay here? Is it because you cannot leave? I know you cannot leave. You walk with liars. You’ve thrown your lot in with them._

Who writes letters like this? Who was Agnes Montague? Who was she writing to? Who—

_End of message._

* * *

> _Can you hear my voice? Do you know why I’m here? Promises are hereditary, my little lichen patch. You never get something for nothing._

_End of message._

* * *

Right now it’s just after seven in the morning. I don’t know why I felt the urge to tell you what time it is; your voicemail probably tells you, but whatever. I can’t exactly take any of it back.

In a few minutes, Gertrude is going to call me into her room and I’ll help her get ready. We’ll go downstairs together. I’ll make breakfast and she’ll tell me about the dream she had. We do that every morning; exchange dreams like parcels. Like yesterday, Gertrude told me she dreamed of a tea party but all the guests were elephants, and I told her I’d dreamed of a woman trapped inside a babbling brook. After we exchange dreams and eat breakfast, Gertrude is going to listen to the news on the radio, and I’m going to go and clean up the house a bit. When she lies down to take a nap this afternoon, I’m going to go outside and maybe pick the last of the hydrangeas, put them in a vase for the kitchen counter.

[ _A long pause._ ]

I re-sealed all the letters and put them back in the box. And then I looked up Fairy Hill. There’s one in Saskatchewan and one in Alaska, but neither of them . . . Neither of them felt right? Like those letters couldn’t come from places like Canada or America. Besides, the stamps are all British, but there’s nothing—

The connection shorted out before I could look some more. It does that a lot up here. Gertrude doesn’t really care and I guess I don’t really mind, either, but sometimes it feels, I don’t know, _deliberate._ Like someone knows I’m looking for Fairy Hill. Like someone doesn’t want me to find out where it is.

[ _A three-toned beep._ ]

That’ll be Gertrude. I’ll talk to you later, Jon. Bye.

_End of message._

* * *

> _Do you_ love _him, [CENSORED]? I remember a time when you told me I was the only one you’d ever love. You combed my hair back from my face and pinned it up with little plastic clips. Don’t you remember?_
> 
> _Don’t you?_
> 
> _You’re a fool, [CENSORED]. I offered you a way out. I offered you a loophole and you spat in my face. Just like [CENSORED] did. But then again, I never loved her, and she never loved me. We were brought together out of necessity. We were brought together for a purpose. I never loved her. I loved you._
> 
> _Love, love._
> 
> _I still love you, [CENSORED]. I love you in a new way. I love you in a way I call hate._

_End of message._

* * *

[ _The sound of wind in leaves, distant birds chirping. Footfalls in grass._ ]

Gertrude told me that when she was a girl, they kept chickens in the little hen house in the garden and that she and her brother gave them all names. I asked her if she remembered what they were and she said, yes, of course. There was one named Sally, she told me, and Mabel. One named Anna, one named Juniper, one named Lily, one named King.

The hen house is unused now. It’s dusty and beat-up, half hidden behind the rose bushes. The garden is overgrown but in a nice way, and it’s sunny, the defiant sort of sunlight you get in the fall when everything is changing, or dying. I hope it’s sunny wherever you are, Jon.

You know, theoretically, I know you live somewhere. I know you probably live in England. Logically, you have a house or an apartment, you eat food and sleep at night, but I can never picture it—

I almost said, _Look, Jon._ And I’m not _stupid_. I know you’re not here with me. Force of habit, I guess, or some weird sense of camaraderie — You never let your voicemail fill up anymore, so I guess that’s friendship for you. I talk at you and you make sure there’s someplace for my words to go. 

If you were here, I would’ve said “Look, Jon,” and I would’ve pointed at the grass beneath the tire-swing. There’s a ring of mushrooms, white-stalked and with tall caps. They’re white, with little black dots on the top, and they’ve made a perfect circle. I wonder how long they’ve been here. I don’t come this far out into the garden, normally.

[ _The footsteps resume._ ]

I never had a garden, growing up. My mother and I, we lived in this dreary little apartment in central London. Just a cardboard box, really; you could hear the neighbours breathing if you tried. Now, whenever I try to remember that little apartment, I can never come up with any specifics. Just this haze of gray and more gray. My mother was— She was always sick when I was little, so half my childhood was spent in hospitals anyway. That’s mostly what I remember: white and blue and the constant smell of hand sanitizer, doctors walking around and LED lights so bright you could never tell what part of the day you were in. The doctors always said I was such a serious little kid, they’d ruffle my hair and tell my mother, ‘ _What a well-behaved son you have_ ’ like it _mattered_ if I was well-behaved or not. Like I was there of my own free volition. And my mother would look at me like she knew, would play along, say things like ' _That’s my Martin for you_ ’. Those were— In those moments, it was like she actually wanted to lay claim to me. To call me _her_ Martin.

Anyway. Gertrude told me that her brother used to—

[ _Stumbling; a bitten-back curse._ ]

What—

There’s something down here, buried in the mud. It must’ve— Give me a second, Jon, it’s like it’s been stamped into the ground.

It’s a sign. God, it looks ancient, splintering wood and carved, hand-painted, though most of the paint has chipped away. It’s— It’s hard to read, the wood’s all crumbly, hold on. It says . . .

Jon, it says _Fairy Hill_.

I don’t— I don’t understand. Why is this here, why is this— _Why is this here_ —

_End of message._

* * *

> _You can’t hide from me forever. Come out, come out, wherever you are, my caged bird._

_End of message._

* * *

Jon, I’m back at the tree with the swing but where those mushrooms were— They’ve all been ripped out of the ground and they’re all lying there and they look like— They look like they’re _bleeding_ —

_End of message._

* * *

It’s eleven in the evening and Gertrude is asleep. The house is awake; the house never sleeps. Something’s always making noise; the heating or the boiler or the weird humming that floats down from the mountains like an echo without a source, like a ghost come home at last.

I thought about it.

I sat on the garden steps, put my head on my knees, and I thought about it. About calling my agency and telling them I want out, that I want to leave. I could’ve made any excuse. My mom’s sick again, I could have said. Or, I need to be somewhere less isolated. Whatever. They would have believed me.

But I didn’t call. I don’t— I don’t think I want to leave.

And it’s not because of Gertrude, even though I do care about her. It’s not because of— Because of the money, or a contract, or a sense of pride, or the fact that it would feel like running away. It’s more because— When I think about leaving, it’s like—

Like my heart forgets how to pump blood, like my rib cage folds in on itself. Like my body knows that leaving isn’t an option.

Is it because of you, Jonathan Sims? Are you keeping me tied here?

Do you know why I can’t leave?

_End of message._

* * *

> _Found you._

_End of message._

* * *

“Gertrude? _Gertrude_!”

_End of message._

* * *

“—She’s not in her bed, she’s not in the _house_ , I’ve been looking all morning—”

_End of message._

* * *

[ _The sound of running, doors being thrown open._ ]

“ _Gertrude!_ ”

_End of message._

* * *

“999, what’s your emergency?”

“I— Please, I need help, I need an ambulance at [CENSORED], I—”

“Sir, can you tell me exactly what’s happened?”

“I— She was missing and— _Oh God she’s bleeding, I don’t_ —”

“Sir, what’s happening?”

“I— I’m sorry, I— Martin, my name is Martin Blackwood and I’m the live-in nurse for Gertrude Robinson — She’s been missing all morning and I only just found her—”

“Is she injured?”

“ _Yes!_ ”

“Alright, Mr. Blackwood, you said you were at [CENSORED]?”

“Yes.”

“We’re sending an ambulance. In the meanwhile can you—”

_End of message._

* * *

I’m in another hospital. Isn’t that funny, Jon? Like speaking it brought it into existence.

She was in the back garden when I finally found her, lying on her stomach in the dirt. She was hidden by the rose bushes. She looked dead, I . . . I _thought_ she was dead. Her skin was pale, her lips were blue. How does a little old lady who can hardly move without her chair make it down three flights of stairs and to the very back of a garden that huge?

I really hate hospitals. Too many bad memories.

There were rose vines growing up her legs. They’d reached her knees by the time I found her. I think— I think if I’d been just an hour too late— I don’t know. The doctors said she was lucky I’d found her. They said she was lucky to still be alive, but no one’s sure . . .

There’s a doctor coming, I’ll— I’ll call you back later, Jon.

_End of message._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! stay tuned for ch. 4, featuring an interlude from a very special somebody ;)


	4. the other side of time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Jon gets his say.** Featuring: stifling loves, the hare, a sideways place.
> 
> ( _Or, ʇɐɔǝu ɐɯnʇsod 'ʇuɐɹǝulnʌ sǝuɯo_ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Mentions of parent death, attempted self-harm.

_Martin Blackwood! Sorry I couldn’t pick up, but please leave a message, thanks!_

**BEEP**

* * *

“—think you can have everything exactly the way you want it, right? You think you can just _take_ whatever you _want_ , but I’m not [CENSORED] and I’m not Gertrude, I won’t _pretend_ —”

_End of message._

* * *

Hi, Martin, right? It’s me. I mean, it’s Jon. We haven’t . . . met. You left me a message, and I’ve been trying to get back to you but the connection isn’t the greatest here. Where I am. It glitches out and—

_End of message._

* * *

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░░░░L░░░no░play░th░se░░ildish░g░mes.

_End of message._

* * *

Hi, Martin, right? It’s me. I mean, it’s Jon. We haven’t met.

I wanted to thank you. For what you’re doing. I know that the house isn’t the — _easiest_ one to live in. So thank you. I’m really grateful.

I wanted to talk to you about the house, actually. Just a few things. It’s old and it needs a lot of upkeep, and I know there hasn’t been a lot of that in recent years, so uh. It can be . . . difficult to be so isolated, especially with the connection being so unpredictable, so make sure you have a reliable way to get into town. Just in case anything happens.

And while we’re talking about things happening, don't go into the garden at night. Foxes like to hide in the bushes sometimes, when it’s dark, and they can get — They’re feral, so make sure you’re careful. Funny story, actually, but once when I was a kid, I heard—

Have you ever heard a fox scream, Martin? It sounds like someone dying. I was maybe seven or eight and I heard something outside my window like, like a woman screaming, so I got out of bed and crept down the stairs — all of them creaking because they do that, they always creak when you don’t want them to because they like getting you into trouble.

She was sitting there, next to the moonflower bush and when I reached out to see if she was injured, she snapped at me. And then, I swear on my life, she _laughed_. Dropped her jaw and laughed.

Oh, and before I forget. If you look at the house from the right angle, standing on the tree-swing — is that still there? — you’ll see on the third floor what looks like an extra window. It’s kind of crooked, higher than all the others. It’s not— Don’t go looking for it. It’s not worth it. And—

_End of message._

* * *

“You can’t just _do_ this. You can’t just — twist the rules around whenever you want, you _made_ the rules!”

“▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓”

“ _No._ I am not like you. I am flesh and bone. See? Can you see?”

“▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓”

“ _God_ , you are— At least tell me, can he hear me? Or is this you? Have you blurred the lines? Again? Are you _afraid_ that I’ll find a way to tell him? Hey, Martin, did you know—”

_End of message._

* * *

Martin, Martin. Sweet Martin, kind Martin.

Leave me alone.

_End of message._

* * *

Hi, Martin, right? It’s me. Jon. We’ve never . . . We’ve never met.

I just wanted to— Thank you. For everything you’re doing for us. But I’m sorry, too. Sorry you’ve gotten yourself caught up in this soap opera called the Sims family.

Anyway.

You should probably have a burner phone or two lying around, just in case of emergencies. You never know what kind of stuff happens, up there in the hills. My mother, she went . . . She went missing, actually. When I was, I don’t know, nine. A couple of hikers found her body a few months later, they said it looked like—

Okay, strictly speaking, I wasn’t supposed to hear what the police were saying. They were talking to my grandmother, but I was always good at making myself seem invisible as a kid. They said that she looked as if the animals had gotten to her not long after she disappeared. So let that be a cautionary tale, I suppose. Don’t go into the hills, especially not alone.

_End of message._

* * *

“Hello, Jon.”

“Go _away_ , Peter.”

[ _A hollowing noise, like wind whistling through an abandoned ship._ ]

“Don’t be like that. He’s very upset with you, you know?”

“Good.”

_End of message._

* * *

Hi, Martin, right? Martin Blackwood? It’s me. Or, it’s Jon. We’ve never met.

Who am I kidding? I’m not talking to you. This is just me, again, looped back onto myself. An echo. Hello, Jon. Hello, hello. _You’ve reached Jonathan Sims_.

No. You haven’t.

It’s nothing new, I guess. This is the way it always is. I bet he loves the symmetry of this. Poor Jon. Poor, helpless, _stupid_ Jon, trapped in this sideways place where time doesn’t work and vines grow out of the walls. So _lonely_. So _afraid_.

I’m not. You hear me? I’m not yours, I’m not yours, I can _feel_ you watching me I’m not— I’m not yours! I will not bow down to you, no matter how many times you send your pet hare to torment me. I will never give myself over to you, do you hear me? Do you hear me? So why can’t you just _leave me **alone**!_

_End of message._

* * *

[ _A door creaking open._ ]

“Hello, Jon.”

“Go _away,_ Peter.”

[ _Footsteps._ ]

“I’m hurt. I thought you’d be more open to an old friend visiting.”

“You’re not my friend.”

“Come on, Jon. I brought you something, look! A peace offering!”

[ _A sound like the wind if the wind could scream; Jon gags as all around him echoes amused laughter._ ]

_End of message._

* * *

Martin, Martin.

Can you hear me?

It’s so dark. And my voice doesn’t carry.

_End of message._

* * *

Hi, Martin, right? It’s me. Jon. We’ve never met.

We’ve never met.

_End of message._

* * *

Martin, listen. Please take care of the house. It means so much to— to Gertrude. She loves that house, loves it more than I could ever convey. People don’t love like that anymore, they don’t love the way she loves it; like a religion, like a burning ritual.

And the house—

The house _remembers_. It remembers everything, every slam and shout, every scratch in the hardwood floors, every crumb in every cabinet. It will either resent you or adore you and Martin, listen to me, you _need_ it to love you. Are you listening to me? Never will there be anything more important than the love of that house. Listen: I never twisted my ankle running down the stairs and my hand never caught in any doors, not even that time when I was leaning against the door-frame while taking off my shoes and the wind slammed it shut. I never bumped into any furniture, I never got _hurt_. In the whole of my childhood, I never once got hurt in that house, not even when I tried. Like when I slammed my head into my bedroom wall, and the wall _curved_ around me like an embrace, not that time I ‘accidentally’ almost spilled coffee all over my feet — I should’ve ended up in the hospital for that one but the line of the liquid twisted in a way that should have been impossible. They say that what you love protects you, but sometimes, a love like that — it can be stifling.

But that sort of love— I _promise_ you, Martin Blackwood, that kind of love is better than the alternative.

_End of message._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, tysm for reading; i appreciate each and every one of you so much! leave a kudos/comment if you'd like, they always make me happy and encourage me to write more.
> 
> also, stay tuned for ch. 5! that one is going to be a _ride ___


	5. on hold.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which time stops working.** Featuring: a diary, a dislocation, someone lost, found.
> 
> ( _Or, Martin's alone — right?_ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for isolation.

_Jonathan Sims speaking. I'm not here to answer your call right now, but please leave a message after the beep and I'll be sure to get back to you as soon as I can._

**BEEP**

* * *

I didn't realize until I tried to leave to visit Gertrude at the hospital. I slept well last night, too well; it was like I'd been drugged, like I'd been anesthetized. Almost blindly. And I guess I must have still been half-asleep because I didn't realize anything was _off_ until I tried to open the door and the door didn't open. Why the light was so dim, so ghostly. Why the whole house felt muted, somehow, like static had pushed its way between the molecules of the world.

I tried to check the local news, but the Internet is out. When I turned on the TV, all the channels were down. Same thing with the radio, and the landline.

I can't— I can't even remember what month it is, Jon. When I tried pulling up my phone's calendar, the whole screen glitched out for a few minutes. I think— I _think_ it's mid-November? Is that right? I'm trying to remember the last time it snowed, but—

I'm going to try and look out one of the top-floor windows.

_End of message._

* * *

It's weird, it's like— Once upon a time, we hadn't even ever heard one another's names. We were complete strangers, and now we're not strangers, we're just _strange_.

Do you understand what I'm saying, Jon? Can you hear me? You're the only number I can call. I tried everyone else; my mother, Tim, Sasha, even my boss. You're the only one that went through.

I feel . . . strange. Disconnected from myself, from the world. Like if I wave my hand in front of my face, there are going to be echoes. Like if I turn around, I'll see another me. This isn't my house, I shouldn't be here, but I'm running my hand along the walls anyway.

I couldn't see anything from the top-floor windows, not even from the attic. The world is just . . . blank. An empty canvas. And maybe if I was younger or just a little bit newer to this place, I would have been worried it wasn't there at all. That the world had blinked out of existence. Object impermanence. Just because the road, the ground, the _world_ isn't visible, it doesn't mean it's not there.

_End of message._

* * *

Someone — something? — has wiped this house clean. There's nothing here that can tell me the date. Nothing that can help me place myself back into the linear narrative. The calendars are all gone, the clocks have all stopped at eleven. I went upstairs to check Gertrude's date-book and it wasn't anywhere. The computer — God, the computer was sitting in a puddle of water. 

What . . . ?

I just found a — a book, on the kitchen counter. It looks like a diary, but a really old one, it's bound and thick with time, the pages dry and crinkled. You know, before coming here, if I found a weird diary on my kitchen counter, I would have _flipped_ out. But this is— God, this is one of the _least_ weird things that's happened to me here. I can deal with this.

[ _The sound of pages rustling._ ]

You know, it sure would be useful if there was a — _helpful_ name written on the inside cover, but there's nothing, just an old snapshot. It looks like it's— It looks like the garden.

Um, I'm looking through the pages and— It starts off normal, yeah? Like — I don't want to say 'typical teenager' because there's no such thing as a typical teenager, not really. What I mean to say is that they're all mundane. Things like grades and friend drama and teachers, you know? But then— half-way through, there's a shift. Up until this point there were doodles in here of girls with cartoon eyes and little birds and flowers, but . . .

There's an entry here. I'll read it out loud.

> _I dreamed tonight that we were sitting on a rock wall above the sea. You were yourself, which is to say, beautiful. And I was like a knight by your side, loyal and brave and true. The sky was an array of red and pink and orange; the sun was dipping below the horizon like an eye put to sleep. There was a heat at the back of my throat, like a little fire I had swallowed. You gestured at the horizon, hand pale against the backdrop of the world and said, "Catch them watching." When I looked to where you were pointing I saw a great slash in the sky like a knife taken to the fabric of time, and out of it poured something thick and viscous, something like tar. You laughed, and it was in my voice._

And next to that page, there's a drawing of a dog with its jaw open and on its tongue you can see a flower with the petals all broken off. A few pages later there's a mouse and it's— It's gnawing off its own tail? There's that entry about being next to the sea, there's a drawing of a woman with a spike protruding from her chest and beneath it there's written _dies tenebrosa sicut nox; a day dark as night_. There's— There's a heart and inside of it are two names—

— _Gertrude and Agnes_.

Jon, I think—

_End of message._

* * *

[ _Shuffling; a bang._ ]

"God _damn_ it, why won't you _open_ —"

_End of message._

* * *

Maybe I should be more scared. Maybe, Jon. But I'm not. I checked in the kitchen and there's enough canned food to last me weeks. The water's running, the electricity is on, even if it won't let me watch TV or use the Internet. There's a box of candles beneath the sink in case anything happens. So I'm fine, I'm set to be fine. Unless you count the fact that I've been temporally dislocated. Apart from the fact that I'm stuck in a nowhere-place where the clocks don't work and the world beyond has been buried in white.

Apart from that.

_End of message._

* * *

Once, when I was twenty, I went to Germany with a friend of mine, Sasha. She loves history, but she loves the smaller versions of it. She doesn't care much for the grand strokes of it, more for the little details. She loves local legends, loves hearing things from their source.

I remember that at one point we stayed in a town called Schramberg. One night she came into the hotel room weighed down with stories about the Schwarzwald, the Black Forest; about the mausoleum lost somewhere inside it, the things that happened there. About how that mausoleum supposedly ruined the family living in the nearby von Closen estate to the point where they left and never came back.

We visited the von Closen house afterwards. It was derelict, barren, battered stone and crumbling walls. There was a . . . a heaviness, there. Like the air itself was permeated with tragedy.

I wonder if there's a ritual a place has to go through, to become like that estate, like that mausoleum; to become holy, but in a perverse sort of way. To become holy in the way that takes all the fervor and devotion but leaves behind the hope for safety, for salvation. The sort of holiness that doesn't make gods, but kills them.

Jon, I think— If there's such a thing, I think it's happening here.

* * *

There's another entry, towards the end of the book. Listen:

> _She told me to meet her at midnight so I did. I saw her before anything else, saw her standing on the hill, which now lay open before me like a split artery. I saw her and she was radiant, face still marred by that terrible, wonderful thing we had done. She stepped down from the hill to stand before me, like a saint, like a saint, like a saint on fire. She was crying._
> 
> _I had never seen her cry before, not even when she told me about what had happened, not even when He hurt her so badly that nothing could fix her._
> 
> _She put her hand on my cheek, like I was a pilgrim at her glorious altar and she said, “You have to come with me. If you don't come with me right now, I will not be able to protect you. You'll have to leave it all behind, but I promise you I will keep you safe from Him and His hound and His hare, from His vicious fury. I will make sure He doesn’t hold you responsible for what was stolen.”_
> 
> _I wanted to go with her. But then I thought, what would happen to the house? Someone has to take care of it. Someone has to make sure that nothing gets out._
> 
> _I stepped back._
> 
> _She looked at me like I'd done something unspeakable, and I suppose I had._
> 
> _“I can't leave,” I told her, “I can't just go.”_
> 
> _She wasn't crying anymore. She just started at me, and then she started to laugh, a dry, heaving thing that stemmed out of some pit at the heart of her. She told me that there was nothing left to save me, that I had forsaken the only thing that ever could. And then she turned back into the hill, the light crescendoing until all I could see was her silhouette. Like a saint on fire._
> 
> _She's wrong. I don't need her to save me. I can save myself._

I— Jon, I think—

If this is Gertrude’s diary, then this has to be Agnes she’s writing about, Agnes Montague— And remember that weird note I found in ‘A Guest for Mr. Spider’? _Twice for the hare of the moon, thrice for the vigilant one_. I thought that that was just a weird metaphor, but Agnes talks about a hare and a hound— What if they’re _people_? I think— This ‘Him’ that they both talk about, what if Gertrude and Agnes _took_ something from him? What if there was someone they were afraid of, what if there was someone who—

[ _A crash; deliberate footsteps walking up distant stairs._ ]

What the—?

[ _A door creaking open._ ]

Jon— _mmph_ —

H̸̥̮̯̆̈́͑͒̎͜ȩ̷̪̞̩̬̣̰̓l̶̢̧̙̖͈͚̗̻̖̱̤̥̝̗̆͌͐̇̔l̵̙̘͠o̸̺̥̰͑̿̌̊͑̃,̷̣͕̗̥͚̰͈͈̝͛̿̿̃̊͌̚͠͝ ̷̡̨̲̳̮͉̗̲͉̬͑̓͛̓͜J̸̧̩̭̗͙̲̲͙͔͚̠̊o̸̲̊̊ṋ̷̲͋̑̈́.̸̙̮̠͉̠͕̙̪̻̹̰̱͊̓̈

_End of message._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i appreciate every single one of you :)


	6. interlude: letters from agnes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written between March 20th and August 16th, [REDACTED]. Letters never sent.

> _You asked me, once, where my fire was, do you remember that?_
> 
> _It was mid-May and the two of us had only just begun our scheming, still ignorant to what was to come. We were sitting beneath the willow tree, our willow tree, and you asked me why, if I was a harbinger of flame, I wasn’t actively on fire._
> 
> _I put my hand over your heart and said, “The fire is on the inside.”_
> 
> _But these days, it’s not. It leaks out of me, Gertrude, spills out of the fissures and the cracks. I am a woman in the process of burning. And that, more than anything, scares me._
> 
> _I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know when I will get out. It’s cold here, and dark. I burn, but I’m not sure for how much longer. I have you, or the idea of you to keep me company, and she comes occasionally, to taunt me or to pity me — I’m not sure which. But even her visits are growing sparse. I am afraid of being forgotten. I do not want to be consumed._

* * *

> _Elias came to visit me today. There was something off about him, something strained. He asked me if I thought that what we were doing could ever pay off. I told him that I did, truly and whole-heartedly._
> 
> _He didn’t say anything else after that, just nodded a few times as though I’d confirmed his suspicions and left. I almost called out to him, almost asked him to stay, if only to have someone else to look at. But I didn’t. I will not toss whatever dignity I have left at his feet like a dog before its master._
> 
> _I wish you would come._

* * *

> _Sometimes, Gertrude, I think I might hate you for leaving me here to rot. You’re clever enough to find me, I know you are. Did they offer you something better? Have you left me here to smoulder?_

* * *

> _Why would you leave me here, alone?_

* * *

> _I am a woman in the process of burning in this awful, awful place. My hands are free, my feet, unbound. But I cannot find the limits of this place. I know that I can wander infinitely and never come upon a boundary. And so in this sense, I am confined to the smallest of cages._

* * *

> _She came again, today, after so long. Time is meaningless to me under normal circumstances, but time_ exists _here. I feel every single second._
> 
> _She came and she told me everything, how you had not let up, how he was going to confer with you, what her part in it all was. I’m sorry for ever thinking you would abandon me, I feel like that is the most important thing. I cannot tell you anything else because nothing I say will ever reach you, not as long as I am stuck here. I cannot tell you what they’ve done, what signs you should look for, even if I know them all. I can only write out my apology on this paper and tell you that I am sorry for doubting you, you, brave and true._
> 
> _But then why do I still hate you so much? Why do I hate you for not looking for me? Why do I hate you for not realizing?_

* * *

> _You asked me once why my fire was not dancing over my skin at all hours, why my throat was not ruined and raw._
> 
> _I tell you now, Gertrude, fierce and hateful: my fire is inside of me and forever will it burn._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **me, writing gertrude and agnes:** are they enemies? lovers? both? who's to say
> 
> as always, i appreciate every comment and every kudos, and thank you all for your support!


	7. a sideways place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which the two paths meet.** Featuring: a labyrinth, a minotaur, Ariadne and her string.
> 
> ( _Or: Some questions are answered, and a reckoning arrives._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for vomiting and unreality.

It starts like this:

Martin wakes up.

 _This is not my room_.

It looks like his room. Everything is in its place; the bed, the walls, the collection of novels on the shelf. Spatially speaking, there's nothing to indicate that he's in anything other than his own room. But something is still wrong. The lighting is off, the windows darkened despite the curtains being drawn. He turns in the bed that isn't his bed to look, eyes still heavy with sleep, and sees — _trees_.

There aren't any trees in front of his bedroom window, which faces the street, but there are so many of them here; so many that he can't see the world outside; so close that they're pressed up against the glass like they're trying to break in.

Martin sits up.

Someone is singing downstairs.

The words are faint, too far away from him to hear them properly, but snatches of lyrics float up through the floorboards.

" _—waking world I was torn, never leaving dreamless slumber, in a mind that's broken and worn . . ."_

Whoever it is has a nice voice. He remembers, distantly, the humming that sometimes floats down from the mountains back at Gertrude's house, the almost dreamy quality to it. It's a stupid thing to think, he knows, but his first thought is that no one with a voice so beautiful can mean him any harm, so he decides to go look for them. He clambours out of the bed that isn't his bed, still wearing the clothes he was wearing before— _before_ —

He can't remember. For the life of him, he can't remember, the memory placed firmly out of reach. Frustrated, he tugs at the hem of his shirt. Something happened, something big, he knows, but he can't remember what—

" _—than a barrier of thorns . . ._ "

Maybe whoever's singing has the answer.

The metal of the doorknob is shockingly cold but it isn't locked, and it swings soundlessly open. The floorboards are rough and unpolished beneath his bare feet, and if he was any more awake he might've noticed how worn, how _forgotten_ everything looks; how the books on the shelf are battered and covered in dust, how the wallpaper is dirty and peeling from the walls, but he isn't and he doesn't.

The hallway is the hallway outside his room but it also isn't. The pictures on the wall are all faded, the faces of their subjects deliberately scratched out. He follows the voice in almost a trance, hand dragging dejectedly along the banister. The windows downstairs are just like the windows upstairs and that doesn't make any sense because how's he still seeing leaves if he's on the ground floor?

The voice is coming from the kitchen. It's louder there, and he can hear every word clearly:

" _Soaring through the dawn and its brightness, battle, beauty. . ._ "

"Hello?" Martin calls, voice worn thin under the heaviness of the still air. The singing stops abruptly. He rounds the corner to see a man crouched on the kitchen floor, writing something on the wall just above the skirting board.

The man doesn't turn to look at him. "Oh, good. You're awake."

"Do you— Do you live here?" he asks after a pause, not wanting to get closer but not wanting to stay away at the same time. The kitchen tiles are disproportionately cold. The man stills with the question, and Martin realizes that he isn't writing something, but cutting something away. There are dead vines littered at his feet, a pair of garden shears in his hand.

"I guess I do," the man says, standing up and brushing off his pants before turning to face Martin, face so unexpectedly familiar that the sight of it feels like a punch to the gut.

Martin stares.

He looks different from the photographs, but not unpleasantly so; his hair was closely-cropped but now it's long, pulled back into a messy knot. He looks wearier, stranger, but there's still that same wariness settled behind his dark eyes, that same serious twist to his mouth. That same look of quiet apprehension, of looking at the world and seeing it for what it is.

"You're Jonathan Sims," he says, disbelieving.

Jonathan Sims gives a mock bow, dropping the shears onto the kitchen counter as he does. The sound rattles in his ears. "Unfortunately," he says, "I am. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you woke up. I'd been watching you for a while, but then I had to come downstairs." He gives the limp plants at his feet a kick for emphasis. "You have to clip them back or they start getting bolder, and before you know it they're trying to strangle you in your sleep."

"I—" This is too much, finally this is too, too much. "Did you get my voicemails?" he asks, lamely, because he can't think of anything else to say. The pipes groan overhead.

Something in Jon's face softens with the question, and suddenly he doesn't look like someone unreachable; he looks _present_ , like Martin can reach out and touch him if he wants to, like his hand won't just pass through. "All of them," he says, and his words hold the ring of truth. "I tried to answer, but the reception here is . . . bad. It didn't want you to know that I heard you."

"But then that means that you've been here the entire time?" Martin asks. He looks over his shoulder at the ghost house, which lies silent and foreboding behind him.

"I have." He crosses his arms. He's looking at Martin like he's testing him, somehow. And Martin doesn't know how he feels about that at all.

"Then why didn't you ever come home?" He feels as if his words aren't his own, as if some other version of him is speaking to Jon in this kitchen that isn't his. "And why am _I_ here?"

"I'm here because someone wants something from me," Jon says. "And you're here because you did something that got their attention."

"Who?" That same dull roar of panic that overtook him when he found the sign for Fairy Hill is back, clawing its way up his throat. He tries taking a step forward and stumbles, would have fallen if Jon didn't catch him.

"You're worse off than I was," he says, face pinched with concern. "Come on, sit down. I'll make you some tea."

"No, I—" Breathing is hard; the room is spinning. And still there's one question, extended to him like a hand in the dark. "Jon, where am I?"

"Are you sure you—"

"Jon," Martin insists, " _where am I_?"

Jon looks at him, still holding his arms to keep him from falling, a man underwater, and says: "You're in Fairy Hill."

And the world goes black.

* * *

Martin wakes up.

He's back in the bed that isn't his bed, Jon curled up, cat-like, in an armchair he's dragged next to it.

"Oh, good. You're awake," Jon says.

Martin sits up too quickly, the world tilting dangerously around him.

"What," he hisses, "the _hell_ happened to me?"

Jon shifts so that he's sitting in the chair and not lying down in it, and before Martin can stop him, reaches out to press his palm to Martin's forehead. Jon's hand is surprisingly warm, or maybe he's just cold, he doesn't know. Nothing makes sense; feeling bleeding together into one long, uninterrupted stream.

"You're not running a fever," Jon says, pulling his hand away. "That's a good sign."

"I don't understand," he says, twisting his fingers into the bedsheets. He can hear the leaves on the impossible-trees outside rustling in the wind.

"It's this place," Jon explains. "It does things to you, it takes parts of you away from the whole. Your soul wanders here."

"This place," Martin echoes. "You mean Fairy Hill."

"Yes. I mean Fairy Hill."

"How did I get here?" Martin asks, falling back onto the bed, the heels of his palms pressed against his eyes. "Why are _you_ here?"

"I don't know why you're here," he says softly, and isn't that just the final nail in Martin's coffin? "My best guess is that someone brought you here. It can't be Helen, because you didn't come in through a door, which means it was probably Peter or Elias."

Martin doesn't miss the disdain clinging to Jon's words when he says the names.

"These people," he says, voice dry, phosphenes making his eyes ache, "who are they?"

He feels, rather than sees, the way Jon's face hardens at the question. "They're part of his Court."

"Whose—"

"Don't ask," Jon says sharply. "You get their attention that way."

"Okay." He's so tired; static is pooling in the tips of his fingers, gravity dragging him down. The air is too heavy in his lungs, the senselessness of his world pressed up against him at all sides. Jon softens, the sharp edges of him dulling somewhat. "Okay." 

"You should probably get some rest," he says, leaning forward to press the back of his hand to Martin's forehead again, the gesture so strangely comforting that Martin doesn't think he could put words to it if he tried. There's a stubborn ache in his throat. "I'll still be here when you wake up."

Martin wants to object, but his tongue is too heavy in his mouth, his heart a bird fallen back against the cage of his ribs, and he doesn't really notice as he slips from consciousness to the gentler backdrop of dreams.

* * *

Martin wakes up.

Jon's still planted resolutely in the armchair next to the bed, a book split open on his chest. His eyes are closed.

He registers all of it (a picture-perfect tableau) before he's gone again.

* * *

Martin wakes up.

He feels different from before, less washed-out, less like an echo of himself. He feels more present then he has since he first woke up in this house that isn't Gertrude's house.

Everything in the room is just as it was before, save for one crucial factor: Jon isn't there with him.

There's the sound of someone vomiting down the hall.

He barely registers getting up and making his way towards the bathroom, coming to himself as he cautiously pushes the door open to find Jon, on the floor and breathing hard.

Martin doesn't know much about ghost houses or family curses or whatever the hell else is going on with the Sims. But this? This, he can handle. This is, he thinks, the one thing he _is_ qualified to handle.

"It's me," he announces, walking over, more to let Jon know that he's there than anything. He crouches down on the floor next to him. Jon's eyes are closed, forehead beaded with sweat. He looks, Martin notices with a hint of worry, like he's been awake without rest for days on end.

"Hey," he mutters, words muffled by the buffer of his hand, which is pressed to his mouth like it's going to keep anything else from leaving it. "Did I wake you up?"

"No," Martin lies, leaning forward to rub Jon's back. He's a creature entirely other from Martin, who's hulking and awkward at the best of times, this man made of bird bones and twisted wires. Hands moving in small, concentric circles, he's about to ask something more when the vomiting starts again.

"There, I've got you, I've got you," he says, Jon's fragile shoulders heaving beneath his hands, "you're going to be alright." He's not sure if that's true, actually, but it's the best he has to offer.

When the worst of it is done and over, Jon reaches out with one slender arm to flush the toilet.

"What happened?" Martin asks, smoothing a few stray hairs away from Jon's forehead. Jon shakes his head, makes a small, unhappy noise somewhere in the back of his throat.

"No, it's just—" he coughs, looking thoroughly miserable. "God, it's just Helen's fucking _hallways_ again, Jesus _Christ_."

Once it becomes clear that Jon isn't about to start throwing up again, he asks (conversationally, but he can't help but be curious), "Who's Helen?"

Jon is quiet for a few moments, pensive, and Martin thinks that maybe he won't answer when he does. "She's the throat of delusion incarnate. The One To Whom All Lies Twist. But she was like us, once."

"You mean she's not from here?" Martin questions, going back to rubbing his back.

He shakes his head. "No, she— She made the mistake of trusting the wrong person. She paid the price. And now she's one of them."

"But she's not," he says slowly.

"Sorry?"

"You don't talk about her the same way you do the others," he says, recalling the bitter twist to Jon's mouth when he mentioned the others, Peter and Elias. "You don't hate her like you do them."

Jon laughs, the sound sudden and sharp, reverberating off the pale blue tiles. "No. I guess I don't. Helen is kind to me, kinder than the others, at least. She owes me a favour. That's why I went to see her, actually. To call it in." A pause in which he lets his head fall against the wall, cushioned by his hand. "I know you're curious. You can ask, if you want to."

"Why does she owe you?" Martin asks, because he's not about to let the opportunity pass up. 

Jon turns to look at him, half his face smashed against his palm. "There was another before her," he explains. "One named Michael. I helped her kill him, so she owes me now."

"Well, then," Martin teases. "I don't know what I was expecting, but it sure wasn't that. I'll add murderer to the very short list of things I know about you.

Jon laughs again, but the sound is more rueful than amused. "Yeah," he says. "I guess I am."

* * *

Martin watches Jon as he goes through the routine motions of his life, as he stalks through the house like he's looking for something, as he looks out the windows, obscured by green, eyes sightless and vacant. Martin sees how tired he is; not in the way that he doesn't sleep enough (which he doesn't, anyway) but in another way, something that runs deeper than simple sleep-deprivation. He watches Jon as he taps his foot impatiently on the kitchen tile while scarfing down whatever meal Martin's coaxed him into eating, watches as he clips his shears onto his belt like he might need them at any time.

It scares him, that restless paranoia.

He watches, shamefully unobtrusive and horribly conspicuous at once, as Jon drives himself into the dirt every not-day doing absolutely _nothing_ but biding his time, waiting for some great reckoning Martin can't even begin to understand, isn't even sure _Jon_ catches the full expanse of. He's brimming with questions he feels it best not to ask, burning up with the stillness of it all.

It scares him.

* * *

"Do you want some cookies?" Jon asks from the door.

Martin looks up from where he's writing in a notebook he found, curled up in a corner in the library. "Sure," he says. Jon gives him a small but genuine smile, and pads into the room, holding a box of oatmeal cookies, which he proffers to Martin. He takes two and watches as Jon sits down in the armchair across from him. He looks like he's thinking hard about something, a small divot appearing between his eyebrows. Martin wants, inexplicably, to smooth it out with his thumb.

He closes his notebook, the sharp snap drawing Jon out of himself.

"Martin," he says, "do you know who Agnes Montague is?"

The floor momentarily disappears from beneath him. "She knew Gertrude," he says, voice sounding strained, far-away. "She sent her letters, I know. They did something together, something big, but I don't know what."

Jon's fingers curl around the armrest as he leans forward, eyes earnest. "I do," he says. "They're the reason I'm here."

"I don't think I understand." In the time that Martin has been here with him, in this un-house, this caricature of what a home should be, he's grown accustomed to his habits, which include (but aren't limited to) starting conversations like he's actually continuing them.

"When Gertrude was younger," he says, words slow, like he isn't quite sure what he can do with them now that he's saying them aloud, "she stole something from someone important, and she locked it away where that person could never reach it. Can you guess where, Martin?"

He doesn't even take a moment to think. "In the house." Because that's where everything goes, because the house is the answer to every equation. Solve for _x_. Find the missing variable.

"That's right," Jon says, and Martin again notes how tired he looks, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the resigned downward tilt of his mouth. "In the house. Because you see, the way things work here is that if you want something that someone else has, it has to be given, explicitly. But there's no rule saying that you can't try and convince the person to give it to you. When Gertrude tricked him out of what she wanted, she had to make sure that she was well-protected enough to not come to harm, but that sort of protection couldn't extend past her. Not to her poor, misguided daughter. And certainly not to me."

"So that person, he took you instead," Martin says, everything clicking horribly into place. "And he won't let you go until you give the house to him."

Jon nods.

"Will you?"

Jon says the word with such conviction that it sets Martin's teeth on edge. "Never," he says, the fire crackling in the hearth. "Never."

* * *

Martin wakes to the distinct feeling of being watched. He looks up and sees Jon standing in the doorway, illuminated by a light of indeterminable source, looking oddly guilty.

Jon doesn't sleep often. Days don't exist in Fairy Hill, not the way they do elsewhere; time loops back onto itself, diverts itself into places it shouldn't hav access to. But Martin still gets tired, still feels the need to sleep periodically. That need doesn't extend itself to Jon, apparently, or at least, not in the same way, because he spends most of his nights (not really nights, but what else is there to say?) prowling through the halls like a house cat, shears in hand to fight any unruly foliage that he may come across.

"Jon?" Martin asks, even though he knows it's him (who else could it be?). "What're you doing, you weirdo?"

"I wasn't doing anything," he says, tone defensive. "I just thought I heard something was all."

Jon looks uncharacteristically vulnerable in the half-dark, features less wary. He looks like what he really is: young and exhausted, caught somewhere between the folds of linear space. "Why don't you sleep?"

Jon pads into the room to hover uncertainly by the desk like some weird species of bird. "I can't," he says, slowly, like Martin is an especially thick child that isn't catching on. "There're things to do."

"Surely those things can wait while you get some rest?"

Jon shrugs. "I don't like sleeping in that room."

The words are out of Martin's mouth before he can think to stop them. "You could sleep here," he says, a mortified blush already creeping up his face. _Why, why does he say words?_

Jon looks down at the floor, kicking at something with the point of his foot. "I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable."

"And _I_ wouldn't want you keening over from exhaustion," he says, because he's already thrown the stone, hasn't he? "Come on. You can sleep with me if you want, it's no big deal."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure," he says, shuffling over to make room. "The bed's big enough for the both of us."

Jon doesn't question him further, just kicks off his shoes and sits down on the vacated side of the bed, looking uncertain and slightly smudged.

"You know you can lie down, right?" Martin asks, and Jon makes an irritated noise somewhere in the back of his throat but does it anyway, back to Martin. The bed's wide enough that either of them can break contact entirely if he wants, but Martin doesn't and neither does Jon; his forearm is pressed against Jon's back, their legs fitted together at the knees. It doesn't bother him. He mashes his face into his pillow to hide his smile.

"Goodnight, weirdo," he says, voice muffled through the fabric.

He can hear Jon's breathing, loud in the quiet. "Goodnight."

* * *

When he wakes up, Jon is gone, his side of the bed neatly made. He can hear him trundling around in the kitchen, hears the clatter of plates. He thinks of the night, of Jon's skin, so warm against his, and realizes that he's really, properly screwed.

* * *

The next night, Martin goes to bed and, a short while later, Jon follows, looking, in the half-light, a bit like a puppy someone's found by the side of a road.

"Do you mind if I—" He pauses, thinks about it, starts again. "Do you mind if I stay here? Again?"

Martin doesn't laugh because he thinks that might drive him away; he just moves to the side so there's room enough for him.

"I— Thanks," he stammers, climbing in. Martin determinedly does _not_ think about how close he is, how right this feels; how it seems to him that maybe he's always been meant to sleep side-by-side with Jonathan Sims.

"You don't have to ask, you know?" he says, when he's sure he won't say something embarrassing. "I told you yesterday that it's no big deal."

"I know," Jon mutters. "It's just— it's been a while. Since I had someone else. Anyone."

And the thought of that makes Martin want to find whoever trapped Jon down here and punch him square in the face. That little furrow reappears between Jon's brows, and because it feels right, Martin reaches out and runs his thumb over it, smoothing it out (smoothing him out). Jon closes his eyes beneath the touch, breathing hitching slightly.

"I miss," he says after a second, with a small, hiccuping laugh that makes Martin's heart _ache_ , "I miss _time_ , Martin. I miss looking up and seeing the _sky_."

"I know," he whispers, because he can't think of anything else to say.

Jon doesn't continue, and Martin doesn't move his hand, watching him, this strange, lonely man. When Jon's breathing slows and he falls asleep, he's still looking, watching in the dark.

* * *

The next un-night, Jon doesn't ask, just crawls into bed next to him, falling asleep the moment his head hits the pillow.

* * *

Time passes, or rather, it doesn't. Martin watches Jon as he goes through the routine motions of his life, and wonders if it's normal, the sudden and fierce protectiveness blazing in his chest at the sight of him, the desire to whisk him somewhere away from this strange place where nothing makes sense and you can't see the sky when you look up. 

* * *

Time passes, or rather, it doesn't.

* * *

Someone is ringing the doorbell.

Jon's been hovering at Martin's shoulder while he makes tea, because Jon can't brew a proper cup to save his life, but he instantly straightens at the sound. Martin looks to him, questioning. He isn't sure how long it's been since he came to Fairy Hill — days? Weeks? Longer? — but he _does_ know that in all that un-time, no one came calling, no one showed any indication that they knew Martin was here at all. Yet here someone is.

The doorbell rings again, twice. Jon takes a deep breath like he's steeling himself, and leans in close. "Be careful," he whispers into Martin's ear. "And don't take anything he says for granted."

"Who's—" he starts, heart pounding in his chest, but he never gets to finish, cut off by another round of insistent ringing. Jon stalks ill-naturedly out of the kitchen. He hears the door swing open.

"Hello, Jon!" A genial voice greets. "You know, I was waiting for you to come introduce me yourself, but I see you're just as difficult as ever."

After a moment of intense deliberation, Martin steps out of the kitchen.

Whoever he'd been expecting, it certainly isn't the man at the door. He's tall, white hair windswept, hands shoved deliberately into the depths of his coat's pockets. He looks like a _sea captain_ of all things, almost comically so.

"Peter Lukas," Jon's voice is strained. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Peter Lukas smiles, his teeth straight and white and far too numerous in his mouth and says, "Why, to greet our guest, of course."

And his eyes land directly on Martin.

* * *

After what is presumably a few minutes, Martin finds himself sitting on a sofa in the parlour next to Jon, Lukas in an armchair across from them, each with a steaming cup of Martin's tea. Jon is holding his like he'd like nothing more than to hurl it at Lukas' face, and he seems to know it, eyes bright with a smug sort of amusement as he takes a long sip from his mug.

"This is delightful stuff," he says. "You made it yourself, Mr. Blackwood?"

Martin doesn't ask how he knows his name. "Yeah," he answers.

"I know our Jon couldn't brew a cup to save his life," Lukas says with a hearty laugh that, despite its joviality, doesn't seem even a little bit sincere. Martin thinks the same thing, and had said it aloud to Jon the first and only time he'd made him tea, too, but he can't help but feel vaguely insulted on Jon's behalf at the words.

"He's not that bad," Martin says. Jon nudges his foot, his meaning clear: _stop talking_.

Peter's mouth splits into a grin that looks ill-suited to his face. It's too wide, and it doesn't reach his eyes. "No need defend his honour in that front, Mr. Blackwood; we all know I'm right. But in all seriousness," he says, setting the cup down on the coffee table, "I must congratulate you, Mr. Blackwood. Not many people know how to open the door that'll bring them to our little world."

Jon puts his cup of tea down so forcefully that some of the liquid spills over onto the mahogany wood. "Actually," he says, the fury in his voice barely-contained, "he didn't find it. He was brought here."

"Oh!" Peter says, eyebrows raising. "Well, isn't that something?"

Martin glances at Jon's face, at the anger simmering behind his eyes, and then at Peter, who looks like he'd love nothing more than for Jon to act on whatever violent impulses are running through his mind, and decides to interfere. "So, Peter," he says, louder than he needs to, strictly speaking. "You came all this way just to see me?"

"Of course," Peter says, eyes meeting Martin's. "I wouldn't want you to feel unwelcome."

He suppresses a shiver. People don't have eyes like Peter Lukas'. No one's eyes are that blue, or that . . . _vacant_. Like looking out over the prow of a boat at a vast expanse of sea and knowing, instinctively, that there's nothing and no one that can save you if you fall overboard.

"But," Lukas continues, straightening the lapels of his wool coat, "that's not the only reason I came. I also came bearing a warning."

Jon closes his eyes.

"You can't do this forever, Jonathan Sims," Peter says, something coaxing slipping into his tone. "You know you'll have to give him what he wants eventually. It'll save both you and your friend here from a great deal of misfortune if you do it sooner rather than later."

Martin isn't sure if Peter is threatening him. He isn't sure he wants to know.

"You can tell him that he can fuck right off," Jon snaps. "I've told you this a hundred times before. I won't give it to you."

Peter shrugs. "I'm just the messenger. You can tell him yourself when he comes knocking."

Jon freezes up. And that, more than anything, scares Martin. Because Jonathan Sims is never still. Because Jon is always burning.

"You're lying," he breathes. "You're a liar, Peter Lukas."

Peter Lukas grins triumphantly. "We both know that's not true."

"Get out," Jon says, standing up abruptly. "Get out. You're not welcome here."

"Jon, who's he talking about?" Martin asks, watching as Peter stands up in turn. "Who's coming?" But he has a feeling he already knows; because everything always twists back to this enigmatic _he_ , first in Agnes' letters, then in Jon's confession in the library, and now here, in Peter Lukas' not-voice.

"Oh!" Lukas laughs. "Don't tell me he doesn't _know_! Martin, my boy, when we say he around here, there's only one he we could be talking about."

"I said," and Jon's teeth are gritted, a force to be reckoned with, " **get out**." There's something different about his voice, something that makes Martin think that maybe Helen isn't the only one who's lost pieces of her humanity trapped down here. Peter Lukas looks momentarily surprised before ducking his head in a nod.

"I can see I'm not welcome anymore," he says, uncanny smile still playing along his lips. "I'll take my leave. Good luck to you both, truly."

And he disappears into a cloud of fog.

Jon waits for all of three seconds before falling back onto the couch, eyes blazing, mouth pressed into that same bitter line.

"Jon," Martin says, slowly. "Who is he?"

"The King, of course," Jon says, and he sounds _exhausted_. "The man with the Watcher's Crown at his fingertips." He leans his head against Martin's arm, eyes closed, like he's done it a thousand times before. He doesn't elaborate further.

And Martin knows.

Martin knows, the same way that he knows that the clocks are all jammed and that vines grow from the walls, that this — all of this, the King, Peter Lukas, _all of it_ — is nothing Jon can escape whole and unscathed.

He reaches for Jon's hand, so slender within his.

* * *

_(Somewhere, there is a Crown, and it is broken, its edges jagged. If you touch it, you bleed._

_Somewhere, there is a man with a Crown atop his head. His veins run with ink instead of blood, his heart pounds to the tune of static._

_Somewhere there is a man with a Crown atop his head. And he knows what he wants._

_Somewhere, there is a man who wants his Crown to be whole again.)_

* * *

It starts like this: With a pounding like the beat of a massive drum that resounds through the house like the walls themselves are the walls of some massive, monstrous heart.

(Imagine, for just a second, the world moving at the same time, to the same rhythm.)

Martin drops the shears he's using when he hears it.

(He can feel the thrum in the bones of him, in his very marrow, and all of him hates it.)

He has to find Jon. That's the one thing he's sure of: _Jon, Jon, Jon_. He stumbles through the passages of the house, vision blurring with the sound and fury.

He finds Jon in the library.

Jon is staring at a door.

It's a door that he's never seen before, a yellow so bright that it hurts to look at, set into the wall between two shelves like it's never _not_ been there. Jon's shoulders are shaking, but when he turns to face him, he sees that he's laughing.

"Martin!" Jon crows, and his voice is unnaturally high. "Thank God you're here— come on."

"What's going on?" he asks, looking from the door to Jon and then back.

"Martin," he says, taking Martin's face in his hands, "listen to me. He's coming for me now, but remember what I said about a favour from Helen? _This_ is the favour. She's found a way out for you. She's found an escape. I _can't_ leave, but you _can_. You just have to go through that door."

As if in invitation, the door swings open with a loud creak, revealing a corridor inside, walls painted a dull beige, carpet the same carpet you can find in hundreds of hotels around the world. Martin looks to Jon's face, so uncharacteristically open.

And only then does Martin realize what Jon means, only then, as the door stands beckoning behind him, as the walls shudder as something terrible and beyond his knowledge approaches.

"You want me to leave you here?" he asks, incredulous, and Jon doesn't say anything right away, just holds onto Martin tighter, hands moving as though he's unsure where to put them, as though he's unsure if he's allowed to hold Martin like this.

"I know how to handle myself," he says, voice so achingly gentle, like he isn't asking Martin to abandon him, like he isn't asking for him to leave him to an unknowable fate. "But the rules are— The rules are _different_ , for you. You're being given a way out, and you have to take that chance. I can't let him hurt you."

"But you're letting him hurt _you_?" Martin asks shrilly. The house sounds like it's going to collapse around them at any moment; the walls shake and shiver.

Jon's mouth twists into that humourless smile. "He doesn't want to hurt me, not until I give him what he wants. And I'm never going to do that. Now _go_."

"I can't just _leave_ you here," he snaps.

"Martin," Jon says, soft; just his name, like a prayer in his mouth. He stands on his toes to press a kiss to Martin's forehead. "I'm sorry. But I can't let you stay."

He plants his hands on Martin's chest and _pushes._

And maybe it's because of how quickly it happens, how unexpected it is, but Martin stumbles and he falls, suspended in the threshold for a fraction of a second, just long enough to see Jon's face, mournful and grimly triumphant at once.

Just long enough to see Jon, falling to his knees as something outside his periphery forces him into a bow _._

And then the door slams shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading this installment of 'gay pining: a horror story' :)


	8. circular motions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which everything repeats itself.** Featuring: a man in the street, flowers on a grave, a note in a pocket.
> 
> ( _Or: There are different kinds of grief._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for death and grief.

Eventually, Martin stops banging against the door. Eventually, he stops shouting Jon's name. Eventually, he looks around him instead of in front. 

Eventually.

The hallway is bland, to put it mildly. The carpet is patterned in some demure repetition of abstract shapes, the walls a dull beige. Every now and then there is a light affixed to the wall, facing a plain-looking oil of a scenery or a polished mirror.

His throat hurts from yelling. He promises himself that he's not going to cry.

(He can't stop thinking of those last few moments. He can't stop thinking of the look on Jon's face.)

(Like was _saving_ him.)

"Hello?" he calls, proud that the tremor in his voice is only minimal. "Helen? Are you here?"

(Somewhere in the mess of colour and noise and movement just beyond the walls, somewhere in the sum of the world's insanity, something called Helen watches him watching the greater part of her, and feels something she hasn't felt in a long time, not since she was something other than what she is.)

No one answers him. He doesn't call out again. He doesn't like the way his voice sounds here, in this infinite hall, doesn't like the way it echoes, and also, he just doesn't like the sound of his voice here, in this infinite hall, because it reminds him of what he is: weak and pathetic and out of his depth.

When he turns back, the door is gone, and the panic that grips him then is so strong that for a moment, he can't breath. The door is gone. The door is _gone_ and he is alone in this nowhere-place, and Jon is somewhere having who-knows-what done to him and—

Inhale, exhale.

There's nothing he can do.

(There's nothing he can do to save him.)

He walks.

The corridor obliges him gleefully, stretching on and on — if time doesn't exist in Fairy Hill then he thinks that time has never even _heard_ of these halls. The paintings on the walls are off-putting, too pleasant, too dull, and the mirrors don't reflect his image, just the plain walls. He counts them in his head: one painting, two paintings, one mirror, three paintings.

He's not sure for how long he walks. The lights in the sconces don't flicker, and there are no clocks, though he knows better than to expect one by now. His phone is in his pocket but he knows, without taking it out, that it won't do anything to help. The only thing he can do is hope that Helen isn't messing with him.

And apparently, she isn't. Because after some un-time, he reaches another door, just like the last one: an acidic, invasive yellow with a polished brass doorknob.

He hesitates. For a fleeting second he thinks that maybe this door will lead him back to Jon (Jon with the steady heart, Jon with the piercing eyes) and Fairy Hill, but he doesn't entertain the notion for long. Thinking about Jon hurts, pierces through the numbness that's fallen over him like a shroud. He grabs the doorknob, twists, and steps out of it with little fanfare, feeling as if he's just jumped from great height, his stomach plummeting.

He's in Gertrude's house. He's in Gertrude's _real_ house, in her _real_ kitchen. The windows don't show him leaves but a view of the road, like they should, the world outside resplendent to his eyes which have become used to the lush greenery of the other house, the not-house. But then he notices something more. There's no snow. The grass isn't brittle and yellowed like November grass is; it's green, puddles pooled on the asphalt of the road, the sky overcast with thick thunderheads.

This is not a November's day.

He pulls out his phone and it _works_ , and there, next to the time (the _time_ ) (2:01 PM) is a date: March 28.

It was late November when he left.

He thinks that maybe the knowledge that he's lost almost four entire months of his life should come as a greater surprise, but all he can manage to feel is a faint twinge of loss. He has missed calls: three from Tim, four from Sasha, one, just one, from the local police department, two from two different unknown numbers. What is he supposed to say to them? " _Oh, I'm so sorry I couldn't answer your calls, I was stuck beneath a hill with a man who's been missing for years, maybe we can go get some coffee later?_ " and for some reason that's the funniest thing in the entire world. He starts to laugh, quietly at first but then louder, louder, until the kitchen rings with his senseless mirth. He slides to the floor, back of his head resting against a wood cabinet.

(Jon, looking up at him that first not-day, shears in hand, dead vines at his feet; Jon the last un-night, lying next to him in the too-large bed, looking troubled.)

Martin realizes, belatedly, that he's crying, tears streaking down his cheeks, and he wipes them away, angry with himself, but they don't stop and he's sobbing before he really knows what's happening, great, heaving things that wrench themselves painfully out of his lungs.

He thinks he might hate Jon, for what he's done.

He thinks he might hate himself for not trying harder, for not tearing Helen's door open through sheer force of will, for not realizing what was going on earlier.

But most of all, _most of all_ , he hates the King. He hates Peter Lukas and Elias and anyone who's had any hand in Jon's imprisonment; he hates anyone who's done anything to hurt him. He hates them all so viciously, so thoroughly, that he can hardly breathe when he thinks about them.

He can't stop crying.

* * *

Someone's knocking at the door.

Martin jerks out of his stupor, out of the space between sleep and consciousness, and realizes he's still huddled on the kitchen floor. His foot has gone asleep, and his entire body makes its protest clear as he stands up, but he doesn't care. The knocking carries on and all Martin can think about is Peter Lukas and his blue, blue eyes, his fake, fake smile, and how very much he doesn't want to have to talk to him again, _especially_ not alone. But then he thinks that if Peter Lukas really is here, then he's not with Jon, and that's literally the only upside to this situation that he can see.

He swings the door open a bit too forcefully, and is flung into such a strong feeling of déjà-vu that it makes him dizzy.

It's not Peter Lukas.

The man still has a cigarette held up to his mouth, and the rain that started while Martin was busy feeling miserable on the kitchen floor has left dark stains speckled across his shoulders. The man has the same dark hair (though his is short and greyer) and the same dark eyes (just as exhausted) and the same nose (roman, crooked like it's been broken before) but the resemblance stops there. Jon looks perpetually stuck between disdain and suspicion, his every feeling clutched close to his heart for fear that it'll be stolen and used against him. This man's every emotion shows on his face, the fear and relief and exhaustion mingling together.

"I'm sorry," he says. "It's happened already, hasn't it?"

Martin doesn't have it in him to be surprised anymore. "The last time you were here, you wouldn't stop telling me you were lost. Have you got anything better to say, now?"

The man's face splits into a grin. Not the slightly-reassuring, slightly-scared smile he wore last time but something new and equally joyless. "I have a lot to say, all right. Have you got a cigarette?"

Martin tells him that he hasn't smoked ever in his life, and the man shrugs, muttering something that sounds an awful lot like _typical_.

"Tea, then. You can bring it outside. I'm not going into that house, not if I can help it." And he plants himself in one of the wicker chairs.

Martin makes tea. He pretends he isn't sulking while he does it because he's an adult, and adults don't sulk. He pulls on a sweater before stepping out. The drizzle has turned into a full-fledged downpour, drumming rhythmically against the roof of the portico, and the man wearing Jon's face accepts a mug graciously, gulping it down like it's the first thing he's had to drink in years. He doesn't pay the heat any mind, even though the liquid must be scalding. When he's done, he wipes his mouth clean with the back of his hand and waits for Martin to sit down across from him, mirroring his posture when he does. "My name's [REDACTED]," he says, setting his mug down onto the ground. "I know who you are, Martin. You're not a Sims, just someone else who's gotten tangled up in their web."

Martin takes a moment to think this over before plying the man with questions. "Who are you? Why did you come here over and over? Why wouldn't you say anything other than that you were lost? Why are you speaking to me properly now, what's changed?"

The man leans back in his chair, fishing a new cigarette out of his coat pocket. It has a broken stalk, and he regards it with an annoyed expression before shrugging and sticking it firmly between his lips. " _You_ have," he says, voice muffled by the cigarette which he's currently in the process of lighting. "You've been inside that house. Once you're inside, nothing matters anymore — you leave pieces of yourself in there. Because that's what this house does. It eats you up." He barks out a laugh that's nothing like Jon's. "Me, I'm all broken into pieces. There are bits of me everywhere. I was lost when I first came here, so that means that parts of me will always be lost."

Martin thinks back to that day so much like this one, to the way the man had looked past him into the darkened hallway and whispered _get out_. "You tried to warn me, didn't you?" he asks. "But you were an echo."

The man takes a puff of his cigarette, smoke curling from his mouth. He looks smaller than he did moments ago, more thoughtful than boyish and cocksure. "That's how I met her. I got lost and I found this house. I knocked on the door and she opened it, said, _come in, please_ , said, _I've got some tea in the kitchen_. I went in for some directions and a warm drink, and most of me never made it back out. I keep thinking that maybe, if I can just find the rest of my pieces, things will be different, but I know they never can be. I made sure of that when I kissed her back."

"Who," Martin asks, "Gertrude?"

"Her mother?" The man looks vaguely confused. "No, not Gertrude." He takes his phone out of his pocket and starts to jab at it, and that's when Martin notices. It's not a phone, not a smartphone, anyway. It's too blocky, too plasticky. And he realizes: it's a pager. He's been fiddling with a pager all this time — when has anyone had a pager outside a hospital, when has anyone worn a windbreaker like his either, for that matter? He thinks about Jon, and he thinks about Gertrude, and he thinks about how there has never been any mention of Jon's father, who's missing from every photograph — not like his photos have been purposefully removed like Jon's mother's were, but like he was never in any to begin with. He's always thought that he left of his own free volition, but now, looking at the man sitting across from him, he's not so sure that's true. Martin blinks at him and he smiles back, a bit sadly. "I never even got to see him," he says. "I was too far gone, by the time he was born. I never got to hold him, never even got a good look. I thought that maybe once they took him I could, but I never did, not even then. Whatever's king down there, it doesn't want the Sims all together. It doesn't want them to be happy. You understand? There's a curse on this family, and what I'd recommend you do about it is get the fuck out of here at the closest opportunity before they get their claws any deeper in you."

Martin shakes his head. "I— can't," he says. "I've been— _I've_ seen Jon. He's why I'm still here. He's why I haven't left."

Jon's dad's face changes, when he says Jon's name. "You've seen him?"

"Yeah," Martin says. "He's alive, he's trapped, but I'm going to get him out, I—"

But he's shaking his head, he's standing up. "You need to _stop_ ," he says forcefully, his eyes turned heavenward. "You need to stop talking. Ever heard the phrase _the walls have ears_? Nowhere is that truer than in this _piece of shit_ house. Don't say things like that out loud unless you want them to screw up your plans." He drops his cigarette on the ground and grinds it out. "I have to go. I can't stay in one place long, but Martin, listen to me—" And he leans in close. Martin can smell tobacco and sandalwood. " _Look for the door_." He straightens up, shivers, pulls the sleeves of his jacket down around his palms. He nods at Martin, like _good luck_.

He walks away, into the rain. Martin watches him go, and when he's gone, rendered invisible by distance and weather, Martin is still staring at where he'd been, lost in thought. He's dragged out of his reverie, violently, by his phone ringing. He fumbles for it and reads the caller ID with a growing sense of dread. [REDACTED] GENERAL HOSPITAL, the text reads.

His hands are shaking so badly that he can hardly answer the call. He remembers Gertrude's skin, that bluish tint to it, rose vines creeping up her legs, and feels like he's going to be sick.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Blackwood?" a man asks of him on the other end. "I'm Gerard Keay, I'm a nurse here at [REDACTED] General. There's something I have to tell you."

* * *

The rain stops and the sun shines, light pale and watery but still present, still warm on Martin's skin. He thinks of the words _dead_ and _buried_ and tries to connect them to Gertrude who was so alive — not as in that she enjoyed life so much, not meaning that she brightened lives with her presence, nothing like that, but in a defiant sort of way. Alive in spite of tragedy. He tries to put those three things together and finds it surprisingly easy and surprisingly hard.

He doesn't cry.

* * *

Gertrude's grave isn't particularly challenging to find. It's right between her husband's and her daughter's.

There are flowers on her grave, so many of them, bright and beautiful. Martin looks down at the bouquet in his own hand, which feels wildly inadequate now, but he puts it next to the headstone anyway.

He feels like he should say something, maybe, but all the words die on his tongue.

Her husband's grave is marked, as is [REDACTED]'s, carved with names and birth dates and death dates and a little quote. But Gertrude's is blank apart from her name, written in a strange, blockish font.

Martin looks at the flowers again. Most of their stems are wrapped in the same translucent wax paper, hinting at a common source. When Martin bends down to read the logo, he sees it's not any flower shop he knows of. They're all stamped with the image of a crown, slightly crooked. At the center of it, rendered in simplistic lines, is an open eye.

* * *

"Can I help you, honey?" the woman at the reception desk asks him when he comes in. She has the face of someone kind; not someone whose job it is to be kind, but someone who decided long ago that that was what they were going to be, regardless of circumstance. Martin must look like he's at the brink of tears because she makes a small, cooing noise and disappears into a door behind her desk, only to reappear moments later with a steaming cup of hot cocoa and a few biscuits. She sits next to him, nudging the platter towards him when he doesn't eat, listening patiently as he stumbles clumsily through his questions.

"I'll check for you, honey," she says, and gives his arm a squeeze.

She spends a few minutes tapping on her computer while Martin holds the cup of cocoa and tries his hardest not to break down in front of this complete stranger. She frowns and hums and titters as she works.

Finally, she looks up and calls him over, turning the monitor for him to see.

"Look here, darling," she says. "We received all of the funeral arrangements from this person—" and she taps at a name on the screen: _E. Bouchard._ "—but I can't say that there have been any visitors. Does that name sound familiar to you?"

"I've never heard of them," he says truthfully. "And if there were no visitors, then why are there so many flowers?" The woman shakes her head, turning the monitor back towards herself.

"I'm sorry, sugar," she says consolingly, and she looks like she means it. "But I don't know."

Martin thanks her for her help. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his sweater so she won't see how hard they're shaking.

* * *

He thinks about calling Jon. He doesn't call Jon.

* * *

He thinks about calling Jon. He calls Jon. He's greeted by the same voice message of a younger, more hopeful boy, and smothers his grief before it can wake up. He tells him everything.

* * *

"Hello?" Martin asks the man at the reception desk. The man blinks at him like he's only just seeing him, and puts down his clipboard.

"Hi!" he says, smile big and white and only a little bit artificial. "How can I help you?"

"I'm wondering if I could speak to Gerard Keay, he was one of the nurses in charge of Gertrude Robinson?" Martin looks over his shoulder. He hates hospitals. His hands feel raw, reeking of antiseptic. The man taps on his keyboard for a few seconds and says, "Martin Blackwood?"

"That's me," he says, and tries to make it sound fun and upbeat. He fails at making it sound fun and upbeat.

The receptionist asks him more questions, which he tries to answer honestly. He tells him that he's been sick whenever he asks where he's been, and Martin isn't sure if he believes him, but he calls Gerard Keay at the end.

Gerard Keay appears a few minutes later. His hair is poorly dyed black and his skin is very pale, but the smile he gives Martin is genuine. Martin tells him what he told the receptionist, but before he can continue, Gerard asks, "You're Martin? Gertrude was asking for you."

Martin takes a deep breath. He's not ready for this. Gertrude died alone, even though he was supposed to be there for her, and now he has to clean up the mess left behind.

Maybe he said part of that aloud, because Gerard frowns and says, "She wasn't alone."

Martin's about to thank him and it's probably written all over his face, the gratitude, the relief that she wasn't by herself, because Gerard takes a step back.

"Not me," he says. "Someone else, a visitor."

"Who was it?" Martin asks him. "Do you remember anything?"

Gerard glances at his watch and then back at Martin's face. His words are a bit rushed, and Martin is sure he's being kept from something important, but he _needs to know_.

"Um," he starts, "it was a man, he called himself Mr. Bouchard. He was tall, he was wearing an expensive suit and — this is weird but it's the last thing I noticed — the cuffs of his shirt were embroidered with golden eyes."

Martin is having trouble breathing. There are black spots blooming in his vision. Gerard asks him if he's okay but he brushes him off. "Did he leave anything behind?" he manages to gasp out. "Anything at all?"

Gerard looks at him kind of funny but says, "Yeah, actually. He left you this. I've had it in my pocket for days." He fishes a paper out of his coat and presses it into Martin's (sweaty) palm. "I'm really sorry but I have to go. Come back if you need anything else though, yeah?" Martin nods and Gerard shoots him an awkward thumbs-up before hurrying off. Martin sits down on a chair in the waiting room and unfolds the paper.

 _ 'The Seven Lamps of Architecture' _it reads, in a spindly, elegant script. _ Used for opening doors. Signed, Elias Bouchard._

* * *

He walks to his car in a trance, almost getting flattened by a truck trying to pull out of its parking spot. The woman inside flips him off, but he can't find it in him to be bothered by it.

"Elias Bouchard," he says out loud once he's safe inside his car, the note crumpled and torn in his hand. "So you were there with her. You couldn't even let her die in peace."

Inhale. Exhale. Whatever.

"You couldn't even let her die." His voice is climbing steadily upward. He's shouting before he knows it, slamming the steering wheel in fury, and there are hot, angry tears on his face, and the thin paper tears further as his nails bite into it as he screams, " _You couldn't even let her die, you couldn't even let her die—_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you sooooooo much for reading, your comments never fail to blow me away! stay tuned for the next chapter, in which martin opens a door


	9. mors vincit omnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which a door is opened.** Featuring: FEatUrING: F̸̶͈̟̫͈̦̭͚̱e͎̩̙͙A̶̳̘͇͚̻͉͟T͙̳̪͘̕U̧̲̖͉̦͖͟R̸̶͕̻͎̤͘I̢̪͈̠N̳͕͇̘̯̥̥͚͡g̶̝̝̦̺̖͘:҉̷̮͉̪̘̹̯
> 
> ( _Or: Some things should remain secret._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: mildly graphic death by poison, body horror, and something that can only partially be considered major character death.

_Jonathan Sims speaking. I'm not here to answer your call right now, but please leave a message after the beep and I'll be sure to get back to you as soon as I can._

**BEEP**

* * *

Dear Jon. 

I know you can't hear this, probably. I know he's taken you somewhere. I know he's done something to you. As punishment, probably, and maybe this is a punishment, too. Maybe he gave me the note to torment me, maybe he gave me the note because he knows I'll go through with it if it means saving you. If you were here, you'd probably take the book from my hands and drop it into the fireplace. If you were here, you'd tell me that I shouldn't do this. But see, Jon, the thing is, you're not here, and I'm not there. You made me _leave_.

It's— I will _never_ forgive you for that, not for as long as I live, I vow it. You can tell yourself what you want, but I'm never going to. You made me leave. You pushed me out the door. You closed yourself off, _God_ —

[ _The sound of something creaking._ ]

I'm sorry. I know you just did what you thought was best, and I know your intentions were good. But we're in this together, Jon. We need to save each other. You can't do this on your own. So that's why I am telling you this. Even if you cannot hear this, even if my words are just that, I am telling you. This is my official statement. The last will and testament of. So no matter what happens, you are responsible, in some sense, for my fate. I am holding you accountable. You have to listen to this voicemail. You cannot hide from it. You cannot ignore it. Please.

'The Seven Lamps of Architecture' wasn't even that hard to find, which was kind of insulting. It was just . . . there. Between two other books at the far end of a shelf. I feel stupid, I mean, come on, all the signs were right in front of my face, so it's really my own fault for ignoring this entire section. Some of the titles here— I mean, really! There's a book named 'The Grimoire of Henry Twice: Being a treatise upon the preternatural', there's a skinny little one called 'Mors vincit omnia', and I'm not stupid, Jon, I went to high school, I know what that means. A bit too on the nose, don't you think? I'd expect them to have more class.

Anyway. 'Seven Lamps' is leather-bound, the pages are thick, and I think it's— I think it's hand-typed? There's the same offset letter _O_ on every page. It's not really a book, not in the way that most books follow a narrative. It's just random passages scattered through the pages, half of them completely nonsensical, all in that same weird type. Things like ' _And through the never-where they sought her final piece, and through the ever-place they chased her, Luna Heartstring, Luna Loved_ ' and ' _Under the willow I set my hand aflame for her_ '. I guess subtlety isn't their forte, yeah?

But I think that the reason he gave me the note was for me to find this particular part, about halfway through the book. There's an illustration that takes up the entire page. It's of a big door with an eye carved into it. There's a hound at the bottom, snapping its jaws at a hare sitting at the top.

And across from that page is a recipe for a blend of tea. It's titled, ' _To open some doors and close others_ '.

[ _A shaky inhale._ ]

And it's all poison, Jon. Every last ingredient on this list can do something like blind you or make your windpipe swell shut. Most of them will kill you, in high concentration. They're _all_ in high concentration.

Yet at the same time, I don't think he wants to kill me, not yet, at least. I don't think he likes getting his hands dirty, this Elias Bouchard. If he did, he would have tortured or tricked you out of the house _ages_ ago. Why bother with negotiations and the like when you can make someone bleed, right? And don't you dare think I didn't notice how scarred up you are. But you know what I mean.

So here's what I'm going to do, Jonathan Sims. I am going to find all of these ingredients, and I am going to follow the recipe, and I am going to drink the result. I am going to open the door. And we'll see what happens from there.

And in case I'm misjudging him, in case he really does intend for me to die, well . . . know that I forgive you. It would be awfully hypocritical of me, to sacrifice myself and then be mad at you for sacrificing _your_ self. I forgive you and I—

—Right. Let's do this.

_End of message._

* * *

Martin Blackwood dies, alone and in pain, on a sunny March morning.

* * *

He finds all the ingredients in the shed in Gertrude's backyard.

The shed, in and of itself, is nothing special, nothing to merit anything more than a passing glance. It's half-hidden behind some bushes, next to what Martin suspects might once have been a topiary but is now a tangled mess of branches and leaves. Its wooden walls are slanted and rotting, covered in ivy, the door creaking nastily as he pushes against it, and the lightbulb doesn't work so he has to use the torch on his phone instead, which lends the place an eerie, darkened feeling.

There's a small workstation, littered with sawdust and mouse droppings. The jars lining the shelves are glass, labels illegible beneath a thick layer of dust, and he spends a good fifteen minutes identifying the plants the recipe calls for. He determinedly does not think about what he is doing. In his experience, thinking about things leads to doubts, and he doesn't want to doubt what he's doing. Doesn't want to think about how, maybe, he's just digging himself an early grave.

And of course, he's been to nursing school. He knows exactly what these plants can do to you if taken in the amounts he's planning on taking them in. He knows exactly what will become of him. His faith is shaky, on poor foundation, but just there enough to lend him a sliver of hope that he will get through this in some way other than in a coffin.

He measures out the ingredients. ( _I have measured out my life with coffeespoons_ , he thinks, a bit hysterically) (he thinks he might be panicking, just a little; breathing is hard and the world is tilting on its axis) and puts them all into little Tupperware containers he's brought along for just this reason. Martin stacks them up neatly and turns off his phone and brings everything up to the house like this is normal, like he gathers poisons every day.

Poisoning is tricky, messy work, as it turns out.

The recipe says to add everything in a specific order: milkweed first and then crushed rosary peas, white snakeroot, nightshade, half of the aconite, castor oil, wisteria, the other half of the aconite, calla lily, and, for some weird reason, to add it all to a cup of tea. Like whoever wrote the recipe was afraid it would taste bad without it. He almost laughs but he doesn't, and takes everything into the kitchen. His hands are shaking so badly that he can hardly pry the lids off the containers. He sets the stove on high and puts water down to boil, and then promptly spills the contents of the box of milkweed. He has to run to the shed to grab the entire glass jar (because he can't be bothered with more measuring, apparently) and when he gets back, the water has boiled, which means he's messed up, which means he has to dump the water to start over again.

He does it right, the second time. Adds everything when he should. Brews some tea. Milk, water, sugar, teabag. Just like he's done a million times before. His teeth are chattering by this point, his entire body shaking feverishly. He's too hot and he's too cold and he feels like he's about to throw up whatever pathetic breakfast he managed to down that morning.

Martin strains the brew and pours the slightly murky liquid in with the tea and lets it all boil together for a bit before taking the pot off the stove and pouring the concoction into a mug. The mug is sky blue, and there are little yellow stars circling the rim. He takes the mug to the kitchen table, pulls back a chair, sits down.

And Martin stares.

The cup of poison he's just made for himself stares back. It's steaming hot and it's filling the whole kitchen with a flowery smell, like it's a normal blend of fragrant tea, like he can drink it and move on with his life.

Despite everything, Martin does not want to die. It's as simple as that.

"Please," he says out loud, his voice scraping and dry with disuse. "Please, let this work like it should."

He picks up the mug. His heart is pounding so hard in his chest that he feels like it'll break through the barrier of his body and fall out onto the floor, his insides twisting, hands shaking so hard that he almost spills the tea.

If he dies, no one will realize he's gone for a long time. He'll rot alone and unaccounted for. Probably, he will be partially eaten by mice. He will have lived his entire life and no one save for three people will really care. He wonders if he'll have a funeral. In his mind, he's found by someone devoid of features, stumbled upon years and years into the future. _Nobody will ever know._

He wishes, childishly, selfishly, that Jon were here, or Tim, or Sasha. He wishes, childishly, selfishly, for his mother.

But there's just him in the kitchen, alone (because that's how he always ends up), with a cup of poison to keep him company.

"Cheers to that," he whispers, and closes his eyes, and downs the tea.

The first he notices of it, once he's put the cup down, is a sudden soreness in his throat. A stinging in his eyes. A discomfort in his chest.

Everything happens very quickly after that.

His throat hurts, his lungs hurt; he catches a glimpse of himself as he staggers for the sink, eyes already red and puffy. His heart is beating so hard that he can hardly hear anything over the rush of blood in his own head. Poison doesn't work this fast. He can't breathe, his windpipe swollen shut, he's panicking, and it _hurts_ , really, really badly, and he wishes Jon were here, he wishes Jon would make it better, he can't breathe, _he can't breathe_ — he's on the floor, when did that happen? He's dimly aware of a faint, wheezing noise, he's dimly aware it's coming from him, and his chest feels like his lungs are actively on fire — his head hurts, there are black spots crowding his vision, a narrowing tunnel, a falling blackness, and he wants it to come, he wants that dark because with that dark comes the promise of a place where this pain won't follow, a place where finally, _finally_ , he will be safe and nobody will ever be able to hurt him ever again.

Martin Blackwood dies on a sunny March morning.

That's all there is to say.

* * *

Jon stares at the ceiling.

" _So here's what I'm going to do, Jonathan Sims_ ," Martin is saying, his voice tiny as it comes out of his phone's speaker. " _I am going to find all of these ingredients, and I am going to follow the recipe, and I am going to drink the result. I am going to open the door. And we'll see what happens from there._ "

The clock on the wall is ticking. He'd forgotten that they did that — he's gotten so used to being, to _existing_ in a place devoid of time, without need of seconds or minutes or hours or any of the other things normal people use to measure the width and height of their normal lives.

" _Right. Let's do this_ ," Martin says, and his voice sounds a bit shaky. The voicemail ends with a robotic female voice telling him ' _End of message_ ' which, thank you, he can figure out just fine by himself.

The clock is so loud.

He looks to his side, in the bed that still kind of smells like Martin — clean, a hint of strawberry shampoo. A notebook is cracked open on the bedside table, a glass of water half-drunk like Martin will come through the bedroom door any moment now, will climb back into the bed and smile at Jon and drink his water and write his poems.

But that's not true. Because Martin has done something stupid and senseless and brave, and Jon isn't sure he will ever see him again.

He falls back onto the bed and covers his face so that no one will see him as he finally lets in to the terror in his heart, lets himself feel all of it for a whole minute before he locks it away again, deep in the recesses of his worthless, worthless heart.

He sits up.

Someone has written something on the wall directly opposite the bed in thick, black paint. Here is what it says:

**_COME FIND ME._ **

* * *

Martin wakes up in a forest.

He's on the ground, pine needles digging into his cheek, mulch soft and loamy beneath his palms. He sits up, head pounding, to get a hold on his surroundings. The trees are slender and widely-spaced, a canopy of bright green above his head, dappled sunlight scattered over the floor. The stench of petrichor is in the air, as is the more pleasant smell of wild places everywhere.

There'd been enough atropine in the poison tea to make him go blind, enough aconitine to make his heart stop permanently, enough ricin to ensure a permanent death. But here he is, splayed out on the floor of a strange woodland, which can only mean one thing.

His plan worked.

And he's not sure if that's such a good thing.

How do you know if someone's overdosed on ricin? Symptoms typically occur ten hours after exposure, though the frame can stretch to twenty-four in some cases. Ingestion, as he did, would lead to bloody vomiting and severe dehydration and low blood pressure. And then seizures, liver failure, kidney failure, spleen failure. Death.

How do you know if someone's overdosed on aconitine? Arrhythmia. Numbness, tingling, vomiting. Death. How do you know if someone's overdosed on atropine? Glaucoma, fever, flushing, delirium. Death.

Patient is currently asymptomatic. Proceed with caution. Et cetera.

He stands up, his vision blurring dramatically, and he has to catch himself by grabbing a tree trunk. Once his eyesight has focused enough for him to attribute shapes to the mess of colour, he looks around and sees that there is a fence, dark wrought-iron that starts, or possibly, ends, just to his left. That means that somewhere nearby, there is a place that merits a fence. And that means that he now has a destination.

Martin walks. He's not sure for how long, but he does, keeping a solid grip on the fence so that he doesn't fall or lose his way.

It means absolutely nothing, to see a thing in Fairy Hill.

The fence ends in front of a house. It's a beautiful house, certainly, tall and proud, placed in the middle of a vast and beautiful garden. It feels solid enough. But there's something— _off_. Something wrong with the way the spires — spires! — jut out of the main structure, something off-putting in the way all the windows seem just a bit too crooked. Like a house that's been built just a little to the left of the world.

Martin abandons the fence to walk down the walkway. He passes flower bushes and little trails that branch out of the main path to lead to a charming little gazebo, or a raised dais made of stone. He stays on the main path until he reaches what he assumes is the front door, climbing the stairs and crossing the veranda to stand in front of it. He raises his hand to knock when it swings open.

To his everlasting credit, Martin does not scream.

The woman that opened the door gives him a swift curtsy en lieu of greeting. This can be attributed to her lack of mouth. She has a nose, and ears, and straight black hair, and eyes that are wide and staring, but where her mouth should be, there is nothing but smooth, unblemished skin.

Martin stumbles backward.

The woman's eyebrows knit together in concern and she reaches out a hand, beckoning. Martin stares at her in horror for all of a few seconds before turning around, determined to run as far away from this place as he can but—

The garden, the charming, well-cultivated garden, is gone as if it had never been there to begin with, replaced by an oppressive line of trees, thick and menacing. There's nowhere to run.

There's static buzzing in his ears. A hand encircles his wrist and it's warm, alive — he turns and the woman nods at him, letting go and stepping back, making enough room for Martin to step through the doorway like he's clearly expected to.

He takes a deep, shuddering breath.

He goes through the door, into the house, and does not wince as the woman closes it behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you sooooooo much for reading. stay tuned for ch. 10, in which the not!martin tag comes into play ;)


	10. twisted labyrinth: a homecoming in three parts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Jon gets blood on his hands.** Featuring: a fury, a hunt, an interrogation.
> 
> ( _Or: Not every mirror is kind._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is _The Only Thing_ by Sufjan Stevens.
> 
> Content warnings for: Self injury (both in real-time and mentions of it in the past) and animal cruelty.

He's not sure what he was expecting. Of course there would be evidence; things don't just vanish without outside interference in the real world. But it still hits him like a punch to the gut when he comes downstairs and sees the Tupperware containers scattered around the stove, the unwashed pan in the sink, the mug with tea congealing at the bottom.

He thinks about Martin, alone and scared, brewing his own death and pouring it into a sky blue mug, and feels something horrible and empty gnawing at his bones.

And buried beneath that: anger.

He doesn't want to be angry with Martin, he really doesn't but he still is, undeniably; so furious with him for throwing his life away like it means _nothing_ , like Jon is worthy of salvation — He's not. Jon is pathetic and wretched and too sharp, and far beyond any hope of rescue. Martin is soft and kind and considerate, and Jon has _used_ him, has twisted him into someone who will drink poison to save a man he's been deluded into thinking is still human. Jon doesn't want to be saved. Jon can save himself just fine. He has bartered and bargained and broken for every scrap of respect, for every second away from the King and his watchful gaze. He can trade more; there is always more to lose. But Martin is not his, and he has lost him anyway, simply because he is a coward who didn't act when he should have.

He realizes he's hungry (he can't remember the last time he was really, properly hungry, and he welcomes the feeling as a distraction from the shame and fear and anger he can't shake) so he opens the fridge.

The inside is completely trashed.

He's not even sure where to start cataloguing the utter disarray inside — with the spilled milk? The orange juice? The butter, the leftovers, the vegetables? The pandemonium is not random but clearly orchestrated, something taunting in the chaos.

Jon thinks of the words upstairs, and grins. Of course Elias wouldn't make this _easy_. He's given Martin a death-note and sent something new to torment Jon, even now, now that he's back on the right side of time. As if the knowledge that Martin is with them isn't torment enough. A new game to play.

Someone is singing. He can hear their voice, eerily familiar, spilling in through the open window:

" _—I started back to Knoxville, got there about midnight / My mother, she was worried and woke up in a fright . . ._ "

Well then, he thinks, grabbing a mercifully whole orange. Let the games begin.

* * *

Someone has been knocking at the door, very insistently, for the past five minutes. Jon will not open it until it stops and, five minutes and forty-six seconds later (something that is not his brain supplies) it does.

He throws open the door and finds a bundle of twigs, wrapped up with twine like the beginnings of a nest.

* * *

Someone has been knocking at the door, very insistently, for the past seven minutes. Jon will not open it until it stops and, three minutes and twenty-eight seconds later (the clock he has open on his phone supplies) it does.

He opens the door and finds a bird with a shard of glass through its chest, twitching pathetically in its death throes.

* * *

Someone has been knocking at the door, very insistently—

"Enough!" he shouts, and the knocking immediately stops.

He opens the door.

Martin is standing on the threshold.

Or is he? This man has the same sandy brown hair, the same freckles scattered over his skin, but his eyes are not the murky hedgerow green to which Jon has grown accustomed, are instead a shining beetle-black that stretches from one corner of its eye to the other. When it smiles, its teeth are sharp and pointed, fox-like.

"Hello, Jon," the thing that is not Martin croons.

Jon has underestimated the King before, but he feels like this is a crossed line, even for him.

"Where is the real Martin?" he asks, and Not-Martin's grin widens, the corners of its bullet-black eyes crinkling.

"Oh, he's still somewhere," it says, leaning in close. Jon can smell packed earth and crushed pepper. "He's still alive, if that's what you mean."

"This is a cruel and unusual punishment."

Not-Martin laughs, drops its jaw and _laughs_ , and it's nothing like Martin in this moment above all others. "And _you_ are a cruel and unusual warden. I _despise_ this house," and it steps back, "but it has a hook through my heart."

"Where is the real Martin?" Jon asks again.

"I know the answer," Not-Martin beams. "But to get it, you'll have to catch me first."

Jon blinks, and it disappears.

* * *

Who does it think it _is_ , anyway? Who does it think it is, to steal Martin's name and face, to smile and laugh and sing while the real Martin is trapped underground? Who gave it the right to crawl out of the nowhere-place where it's always been, who gave it _permission_? It used to be that people knew exactly what to do with ghosts, with things that burrowed into people's bodies and looked sideways out of their eyes. Now, he thinks he is the only one left with that knowledge.

And again there is that helpless anger.

In the garden, there is a crudely-assembled bundle of sticks in the shape of a person of roughly Jon's height and build. Very recently, it has been set on fire.

* * *

In the deep hours of the night, as he lies awake in bed with half-formed plots and plans flitting through his mind, he hears singing coming from the garden.

" _At the well below the valley-o / Green grows the lilly-o / Right among the bushes-o_ …"

Jon wants to tear its heart out.

* * *

Gertrude, of course, was a resourceful woman. She kept poisons in the back shed, she kept iron filings in a bottle on her bedside table. She pinned horseshoes to the top of every front door, she lined every window with crushed glass, an obsession bordering on paranoia but never quite crossing the threshold. When Jon was little, she used to weigh his pockets down with rowan berries and knot daisies into his shoelaces. She would put too much salt in all their food and throw it over her shoulder, and she would never let him go anywhere without a small plastic baggie of the stuff. Once, a classmate of his had baked cookies and distributed them to the class. When Gertrude found it, crumbling in his lunch box, she'd given him an appraising look before tossing it into the burning fireplace.

All that to say, Gertrude had never lacked anything that could be used as protection, and that means that every knife in the kitchen is made of solid iron.

He takes one and then, after a moment of deliberation, takes another and straps it to his arm. You can never be too careful, and changelings are violent creatures.

* * *

He hears it laughing at him as he looks for it, an iron knife in hand. The sound echoes through the house, embedded in the walls. He _will_ catch it and he will pry whatever information he can out of it. He will carve its heart out and crush it beneath his heel, will brand his name into its skin. Jon does not have to be kind, or meek, or vulnerable. He can be as cruel as he likes. He gets to choose how merciful he will be, and Jon does not want to be merciful. Jon wants to dig his knife into the thing's side. Jon wants to watch it _bleed_.

Once upon a time, he would have been worried by this violence. Now, he is just surprised that he doesn't want worse. And oh, there is always worse for people like him. Worse like what happened to Elias, worse like what happened to Helen, worse like what happened to Michael. For people like them, people taken and twisted, people with knives in their hearts and knives up their sleeves, there is _always_ worse.

He hears a rushing noise and when he ducks his head into the bathroom, he is greeted by the sight of every spigot on and spewing water, the tub half-full and the sink already overflowing onto the tile. He snarls in frustration and turns the faucets right.

* * *

There's a truly awful smell coming from the kitchen, wet and metallic. Jon walks in and finds hares, five of them, necks twisted grotesquely, suspended from the ceiling, dripping blood on the floor.

* * *

It all makes headway three days in. Jon has the beginnings of a plan forming in his mind, something about spaces of power and the effects of iron. He has traced the perimeter of his bedroom with a thick line of salt, and has locked the door, and now he is lying in bed, mentally going over a layout of the house.

That's when he hears it: a shuffling noise from outside. He listens, hardly daring to breathe as it stops directly in front of his door. The handle turns — and stops. He hears a sound of frustration, a thunk. He's grateful for the salt; he doesn't fancy having his throat slit while he sleeps. He thinks that that will be the end of it, that the thing wearing Martin's face will skulk off and come up with some other plot, but it doesn't.

"Jon?" it asks, voice small and tentative. Jon squeezes his eyes shut and turns in the bed. "Jon, are you in there?"

He will not answer. He will not be tricked.

"Jon . . ." And its voice is shaking just so, like a facade of bravery coming down. "Jon, please I— I'm scared. It's so dark and I can't see."

He tries covering his ears, but he can still hear it, over the rush of blood in his own head.

"Jon, please, it hurts. Help me, Jon, help me, please, please don't leave me here alone, I don't want to be alone . . ."

Jon can hear his own breathing, loud in the oppressive dark of the room.

"Jon—" Its voice catches. And then it starts to cry. Quietly at first, but it gets gradually louder, until all Jon can hear are Martin's sobs of fear and pain from just outside his bedroom door.

"Jon, it hurts! Please! Why aren't you coming?" Screaming, distorted and wrong, yet an exact imitation at the same time, and Jon has never heard Martin scream before but now it's all he can hear, burrowing into his ears. He curls up on the bed, hands clamped over his ears, eyes squeezed as tightly shut as he can manage, and he doesn't know why he's shaking so bad, he _knows_ this isn't Martin—

"Jon, Jon, _Jon!_ " It's banging against the door, dragging its fists down the wood. "Please help, everything _hurts_!"

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

"Jon!"

"Jon, _please!_ "

" _Jon, please!_ "

Every part of his body is trembling with fury and fear, twin fires blazing in his chest. All he can hear are Martin's horrific screams, and he can do _nothing_ to help because he is _weak_ , and the sound won't stop it won't _stop_ —

And all he can do is listen.

It goes on for a long, long time. When it finally stops, it's still dark outside, and Jon's face is sticky with tears; he thinks he will never be able to move again, that maybe his body will stay frozen in this position for all eternity and, in a thousand years, when the house is nothing but a memory he will still be here, Martin's screams echoing in his ears.

* * *

It's not really hard, after that, to figure out just what to do to corner the thing. It gave itself away, with its delight for misery, its bloody portraits.

Jon's not sure where it is right now, and he doesn't bother finding out. If all goes according to plan, it will find him.

He stands at the door, just outside the threshold, iron knife in hand. He takes a deep breath. _For Martin_ , he thinks, and cuts himself along his arm. The pain is sharp, digging into him, and blood immediately wells up and out of the wound. He grits his teeth and digs the knife in deeper so he won't start healing halfway through. _For Martin. For Martin._

 _Okay_.

He touches his fingers to the wound, biting back a noise of pain, and starts. He'll draw a line, a violent trail, from the entrance to the library, and the thing, the Not-Martin, the crude imitation, will follow like a moth drawn to a flame.

He drags his fingers along the wall, and he's sure the copper stain left behind will never come out. He cuts himself deeper when the skin starts knitting itself back together, biting his tongue, and he's finished relatively quickly, quicker than he'd thought. The manacles are dangling from his belt loop. The only thing left is the changeling. And it comes, as he'd thought it would, only a few minutes later. It doesn't bother acting quiet.

Jon has already had time to adjust to the dim light of the library, but it has not, so when it enters the room it does not see Jon, half-hidden behind a book case, not until Jon slams his shoulder into its back, not until Jon is pinning it down with his knees and forcing its wrists into the cuffs.

It lets out a scream, equal parts pain and frustration as he lets up, the iron no doubt burning into its skin, and Jon gives it a grim smile as it glares up at him, its oil-spill eyes radiant in the blackness. He's sure it won't make a move to run and he's right; he flicks the light switch and it hisses in surprise as the room floods with brightness, the thick curtains drawn over the windows.

"Caught you," Jon says.

It scowls and tries to move but cannot, held in place by the iron manacles.

"Oh, _very_ good," it sneers. "Do you want an award for this? You cheated."

"Not any more than you," Jon says. The thing tries to kick him, but he moves out of the way.

"If you do that again," Jon threatens, "I'll hurt you."

"Of course you will," the thing sing-songs. "Brave, brave Jon who sets his traps oh so carefully. I _tried_ to play fair."

Jon makes sure his knife is right where the thing can see it and says, "You cheated every step of the way, and you know it. _He's_ fair, and because you are his shadow, you are not."

"How clever," it hisses. Its teeth are sharp, pointed. "Once upon a time, people knew what to do with things like me. Once upon a time. Now I think you are the only one left." It cocks its head to a side, considering. "Does that make you feel proud?"

Jon thinks about that, for a moment. "I think it just makes me feel lonely."

"That's Lukas' job," it says sourly, and tries to kick Jon again. Jon promised to hurt it so he does, and drives the knife into its leg, just above its kneecap.

Not-Martin makes a high, keening noise of pain. When Jon wrenches the knife out, no blood wells up to the surface. Instead, it oozes black ink.

"Do that again," he repeats, "and I will hurt you more."

"Jon, Jon," it pants, still with that lyrical lilt in its voice. "Why do you hurt me so?" It lets its shoulders curl inwards, face pulled into an expression of concern. "You're hurting me, Jon."

Jon does not like how it sounds like Martin now, too. "Stop that," he snaps. He's reminded of that awful night, trying to drown out its voice. It knows that he's thinking about it; it straightens, face shifting back into its normal cruel expression, and laughs in his face.

"I've caught you," he says. "Now tell me where the _real_ Martin is. No tricks."

"Oh, Martin," it sighs. "Do you think he'll be scared of you when he finds out about the things you've done? I hope so."

" _Shut up_ ," he snarls, because the thought of Martin's face crumbling as some nameless being lists all he's done is more than he can bear.

"What if he finds out about how you helped Helen trap Michael? Or how you almost Beheld Peter into oblivion, that's a good one. Or about that time you cut off that poor servant's finger?"

"Stop it— No, that's not—"

"Or," it continues gleefully, "the things you've done to _yourself_? Like that time you almost gouged your eyes out, that time you 'tripped' down the stairs, that time he made you carve yourself open? Which do you think would hurt him more to find out about? The self-infliction? Or the careless way you use others?"

His heart is pounding in the hollow of his throat, his hands have started to shake. Because of course this thing would remind him about everything he hates about himself. Because of course it would.

The thing has devolved into wordless humming, nodding its head to the tune.

"You know, he truly thinks you're worth saving," it says, finally raising its head to meet Jon's eyes. There's something vaguely sympathetic in its expression, and that, to him, is the worst thing of all. "He really thinks you're a good person. How thoroughly you have him deceived. How completely enamored. You're not a good person, Jonathan Sims, and I cannot wait until he finds that out."

 _That_ snaps him out of it. He's not a good person, but he's not weak, either. He's not helpless. He's not sprawled at the King's feet anymore. Because he accepted, long ago, that to survive in Fairy Hill is to be indecent. To survive in Fairy Hill is to be wretched and cold-hearted and unjust. To survive in his Court is to be cruel and uncaring, to delight in carnage and ruin.

Jon can do that. He can do it very well. He can laugh through a mouthful of blood — it's not that hard anymore.

It seems to realize that it's made a mistake, fear momentarily flitting across its face. Jon has had enough.

" **Where** ," he asks, very calmly, " **is Martin Blackwood?** "

"No," it whines. "I don't _want to_ , stop it, stop looking at me!"

" **Where is the real Martin Blackwood? Tell me!** "

The words spill out of its mouth, almost too fast for it to form them. "He's in Elias' estate, in the fourth room on the third floor, sitting on the bed and looking out the window."

Jon's blood goes cold. "Elias' estate, you said?"

"That's what you pulled out, isn't it?" it counters furiously.

"And how can I get to him?"

"I won't tell you."

" **How can I get to him?** "

Its face contorts in fury, but Jon proves stronger. "The gateway is somewhere in this house!" it blurts out.

" **Why does he want my Martin?** "

Its skin has taken on a sickly sheen, manacles chafing against its wrists, the knee of its pants sticky with black ink. "Because his plans are unfinished and he intends to use Martin to complete them." It gasps for air like a man, drowned. "Please, _please_ no more."

Jon Looks down at this thing that wears Martin's face so easily. He Sees a life, unlived. Martin's bitter mirror. When Martin drinks tea, it drinks cyanide; when Martin laughs, it screams.

And Jon thinks that maybe he should feel sorry for it.

But he doesn't.

He doesn't, because he has Observed the core of its being and Seen that this creature is Martin's exact opposite. Because he Knows that, while his Martin despises cruelty and violence, this washed-out version revels in it.

The knife is heavy in his palm. It's his decision to make; he can choose how kind he will be. He can choose if he will take the path of ruination. He actually has _options_ , this time.

(He feels drunk on it, on this power.)

He does not put the knife down. He has made his decision. He looks down at the thing that isn't Martin Blackwood, and he thinks that he will like ruining it very, very much.

Jon is so tired of being kind.

* * *

Jon has learned from experience that cleaning out fae blood is harder than cleaning out regular blood. On the upside, he also knows that it's much easier to dispose of fae bodies.

The thing that is not Martin Blackwood is currently in the process of disposing of itself, flowers bursting from its open mouth. He's sure that, with time, there will be nothing but pale blue periwinkle left of it.

He thinks over what it told him, thinks about switched places and doors and unfinished plans. He thinks about Martin, alone with Elias. He thinks about Martin, alone with the King, who does not have the same qualms regarding violence as Elias does. He thinks about Elias and his vicious mind games; he thinks about the King and his cruel desires; he thinks about Peter and his awful, awful loneliness. And Jon knows, with no need of any help, that he needs to find the gateway and he needs to find it fast.

There have only ever been two people who have known this house's every secret, its every wretched nook and cranny. One of them is currently in the process of decomposing six feet beneath the ground.

He's left with no other option, and really, what did he expect?

To find the gateway, he must first find Agnes Montague.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so how was that for a chapter! tysm for reading!! also: you can now experience this fic IN STEREO by listening to [this playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5YDik2kCtC76wE5rG0TnFj)!
> 
> tune in next time, for when elias finally shows his smug face
> 
> the lyrics in this chapter are from 'knoxville girl' by the louvin brothers and 'the well below the valley' by planxty. murder ballads are a beautiful and haunting subgenre of folk music, and everyone should listen to at least one in their entire lives.


	11. a baring of teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Martin attends a strange feast.** Featuring: an appetizer, a main course, a desert.
> 
> ( _Or: There are reasons the old stories are written the way they are._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for body horror, questionable consumption of food, mentions of past child abuse, isolation and guilt.
> 
> The song for this chapter is _Fear of the Water_ by SYML.

It's always so cold.

Really, that's the most prominent quality of the house, next to being old and mildly terrifying; the chill sinks its teeth into everything, merciless and bone-deep.

Martin's room, or at least, the room he has been allotted for the time speaking, is at the far end of the estate, down a corridor of closed doors that reminds him of a more ominous version of Helen's hall. He has seen no one, has been given no clues pertaining to the identity of the owner of the house. The only other person, or at least, the only other person he knows of, is the mouthless woman, who he now knows is named Lesere. She visits him occasionally, to leave him steaming bowls of oatmeal, or glasses of water, or just to stand by the door, looking at him with wide eyes. She holds her hands behind her back and ignores any attempts he makes to communicate with her. The most he gets out of her are hurried motions in clunky sign language: _eat_ , or _silent_.

He's not sure if he should feel sorry for her or not.

The room itself lacks nothing. There is a bathroom attached, and a wide window with a stunning view over the darkened forest that surrounds the house on all sides, reminiscent of the Schwarzwald to a nearly comical degree. The bed is big and dark, a hulking four-poster draped with green hangings, and there is a towering wooden cabinet brimming with identical white blouses and black pants, all somehow fitted perfectly to Martin.

Paired with the invariably locked door, the message it all gives is clear: he is not to leave this room. He is well taken care of, but in the context of prisoner and not guest.

He spends his time lying on the four-poster and pacing around the room in a way that's too similar to Jon's mannerisms, and he looks out the window and he tries to read, but the books are all written in confusing, spiraling paragraphs, and looking at the forest fills him with an insurmountable sense of dread and his feet tire from pacing and his back hurts from lying immobile on the bed.

And then one day — he's fallen back into the habit of saying _day_ and _night_ even though the house seems stuck in a permanent state of twilight, lit by flickering candles and what little light manages to battle its way through the thick forest — Lesere comes in with a note clutched in one hand and a strip of black cloth in the other. She hands him the paper and signs, _read_.

Martin does.

 _Martin_ , the note reads, in a familiar spindly hand, _I pray you've been comfortable during your stay in my home. I am your host, and as such, it is my duty to cater to your every need. Please let Lesere know if you require anything. That being said, it has been some time since your arrival, and I have yet to see you. I have asked Lesere to accompany you down to the dining hall, where I hope to speak with you over food and drink. I implore you to accept my invitation; you will not regret it._

_Your obedient servant, Elias Bouchard._

The irony of this is not lost on Martin, who cannot help but hinge on the fact that Elias — and of course it would be him, of course he is stuck in _his_ house of all places — is content to act as if Martin is here of his own free volition and not imprisoned like a maiden in a fairy tale. Poisoned and spirited away, and then made to be grateful for it. But he can't deny he's curious, can't deny that most of him wants to accept, if only to see what Elias wants with him.

He might as well make a good impression, then, and he nicks a shirt and pair of slacks from the closet before ducking into the bathroom to change. When he re-enters the room (noticing, bitterly, that the cloth is far finer than any he could ever hope to afford) Lesere is still standing where he left her, doe-eyes monitoring his every movement.

"Right," he says, a bit nervously. "Lead on, then."

Lesere steps forward, stretching the cloth taut between her hands.

"Sorry, what— what's that?"

Lesere's eyebrows knit together. She drapes the cloth over her arm and signs: _You have to go blindfolded._

" _What?_ " he sputters indignantly. "I am _not_ going to go _anywhere_ blindfolded!"

 _Please_ she signs, and there's something pleading in her eyes that gives Martin pause. She glances furtively over her shoulder as though scared someone will see, and then she signs, quick and careful: _He'll hurt me if you don't._

It's the most she's ever said to him.

Martin curses his soft mortal heart and says, "Fine."

_Thank you._

Lesere ties the band around his eyes quickly (she does everything quickly, every movement efficient and thought out, something about it making him think back to nursing school). The cloth is soft and completely obscures his vision.

"How am I supposed to go anywhere like this?" he asks, and in answer, Lesere takes his hand and tugs him forward. Her hands are rough and calloused but surprisingly gentle as she leads him out of the confines of his room and into the hall, the draft hitting him like a shock.

He's not sure for how long they walk. They take several turns, and he hears strange things: snatches of conversation in languages that he doesn't understand, high, trilling laughter, a rustle like the wings of a bird taking flight. It's obvious that he's not alone in the manor, despite his isolation. The air gets heavier as they walk, so he can only assume they're going deeper into the house, and with every step, the feeling of being watched, of being _observed_ that has been plaguing him since he first stepped over the threshold grows more intense until he's certain that Lesere is marching him through a silent room of people, all eyes on him.

And then: they stop. Lesere lets go of his hand and he's lost for a second before her hands reappear, deft fingers picking at the knot and slipping the blindfold off his face. They're standing in front of an impressive pair of wooden double doors, towering and elegantly carved, depicting — he's not sure. A strange pattern of fractals and watchful eyes, odd whorls and intricate designs.

 _Good luck_ , Lesere signs, and then she's gone, ducking into a small door to his left, and Martin is alone again, with nothing but that horrible feeling of being truly seen to keep him company. That and, presumably, the nightmare-man sitting somewhere beyond the doors.

His stomach twists unpleasantly with the realization that now, _finally_ , he will meet him, this Elias, presumed seneschal, definite danger, a mixture of panic and anticipation that makes him feel sick, but he rubs his hands together and wraps them around the door handles and pushes. They open soundlessly, and he's hit by a gust of pleasantly warm air, a delicious smell.

Beyond the doors is the most magnificent dining room he's ever seen. It's huge, the ceiling vaulted and hung with draperies and a massive, beautiful chandelier of crystal and glass. There are paintings and tapestries lining the walls, depictions of faceless men on thrones and towering monoliths stretching, solitary, into the sky. There's a fireplace blazing off to the side, stocked with logs and burning bright, and the floor is polished wood. That's all disregarding the table, which is long and beautiful and laid out with a feast decadent enough to host kings. There are silver platters laden with roast duck and chicken and beef; salads and shrimp and sausages; bread cut in thick slices and lathered with butter, tureens of soup still steaming; carafes of vibrant wine and other drinks he can't even think to name, in bright yellow and aquamarine. The room is redolent with the smell of incense and crushed herbs. It all makes him unspeakably upset, that all this is laid out for only two people, he who has lived his entire life with just enough to get by.

"Ah, Martin," a voice calls. "I'm so glad you accepted my invitation."

And that's when Martin's eyes finally land on the man sitting at the head of the table in a seat that more resembles a throne than a chair meant for dining. The man gestures at the seat at his right hand and says, "Come, sit."

Trepidation growing with every step, Martin makes his way for the seat and sits down, and finally, _finally_ , looks at Elias Bouchard.

He's not at all what Martin was expecting. He's _younger_ , that's for sure, looking only a few years older than Martin himself. He's wearing a bottle-green blouse, buttoned up to his throat, the colour complementing his olive complexion. Over that, he's wearing a black coat, elegantly embroidered, everything about him exuding wealth and power. There's a single gold earring dangling from his ear (both of which taper off into the barest of points), his dark hair expertly coiffed.

And then there is the matter of his eyes. One is a muddy brown, not unlike Jon's; unremarkable unless you have reason to make it so. The other is a bright, piercing green.

"So you're Elias," he says, which is not what he meant to say at all; he feels the familiar flush already climbing up his face.

But Elias laughs, startling him, a quiet chuckle that stems in his chest and says, "That I am, Martin Blackwood. Tell me, how are you liking your stay so far?" He has a smooth voice, one that's clearly used to being obeyed.

"It's lonely," Martin blurts out. "And quiet."

He laughs again. Apparently, Martin has caught him in good humour — or maybe that's just what he wants him to think. "I suppose Peter's been influencing the house, then."

"Peter Lukas?" Martin asks too quickly. Elias smiles at him indulgently, reaching for a pitcher of something sparkling and purple.

"Hand me your glass, Martin," he says, and Martin does, his hand seeming to move of its own accord. He lets it slide, for now. "And yes, Peter Lukas." He pours a generous serving of the stuff into the stemmed glass Martin has offered. "He comes by often enough, when he's not busy minding his own court. Though if you ask me, the Court of the Forsaken never needed much minding."

"You know Peter?"

Elias pours some of the purple liquid for himself and takes a sip. "I'd hope so," he says, raising a brow, "as I've been sleeping with him for the past five decades."

Martin's not sure if he should laugh or not. Elias catches on, dual-toned eyes boring into his own.

"Drink," he says. "You'll like it."

And again, Martin's hand moves on his own, curling around the stem of his glass and raising it to his lips. He tries to stop but can't; his heart is beating too hard in his chest. The drink is sharp and bright on his tongue, startlingly sweet, and immediately makes him feel light-headed.

"No, thank you," he says, firmly setting the glass down. "And please stop doing that."

"Oh, I am so sorry," Elias says, not looking sorry at all. "I didn't notice myself."

"Thank you."

There's movement but one of the walls, and Martin jolts; there's a man standing there, older than Lesere but mouthless just like her, hands folded over his stomach. He used to feel sick when he looked at her face, eyes inevitably drawn to the smooth skin where her mouth would have been.

It's amazing, how fast you can get used to things.

Elias waves a hand dismissively when he sees where Martin is looking. "Just a servant," he says. "But I do mean what I said: you _will_ like the food. It's not every day I have guests to personally entertain. Court is remarkably boring in that sense. These days, the only people I get to feast with are people indebted to me, and that's a punishment entirely on its own. _Oh, please Mr. Bouchard_ ," he says, in a high, mocking voice. " _Don't hurt me, I swear I'll do as you say!_ " he laughs again, sharp and clear, even though Martin has not heard anything less amusing in his entire life.

"Indebted to you," Martin repeats, so he won't comment on the rest of what was said. "How so?"

"My dear boy," Elias says. "Where do you think I get my servants from?"

Martin's heart lurches sickeningly. "You don't mean—"

"Oh, it's all a fair bargain," he says. "I tell them, _Don't take anything or you will be in my servitude for one hundred years and one day_ , and they eat at my table despite the warning. I say, _Do not ask me for anything or you will be cut open and scavenged for parts_ , and they still ask me for my name."

Martin feels like he's about to be sick. "But that's not _fair_ ," he says vehemently. "They don't know that's what you mean, not if they're normal people, mortal people like me. There's never been a precedent, they wouldn't know— Is that what happened to Lesere?"

Elias looks supremely unbothered in the face of Martin's rage. He ladles some soup into his bowl as he says, "Lesere is a servant, is she not? Her I told not to help a wounded man lest she lose her free will for a decade and a half, but she did it anyway. She was a nurse, if that explains anything."

Martin's hands are shaking so hard that he has to ball them into fists, nails digging half-moons into his palms.

"But let's' not speak of such upsetting things," Elias continues, as though Martin isn't silently seething. "Have some duck."

Martin's hands reach for the platter upon which the duck sits. "I thought I asked you to stop that?" Martin snaps, and immediately his hands drop onto the table with a crack, the left one narrowly missing a plate heaped with rolls.

"Apologies," he says again, but Martin catches the glimmer of amusement in his eyes and realizes: he's enjoying this. He enjoys watching Martin struggle, delights in his anger. He sucks in a deep breath and says, as politely as he can manage: "Tell me more about Court." Because he may as well figure out how things work down here if he's to stay.

"All boring stuff," Elias says. "Politics, mostly. Dodging assassination attempts, solving petty quarrels. But being the beating heart of the Court of the Ceaseless Watcher does have its perks. Revels, balls, feasts."

"It doesn't sound that boring if you ask me," Martin says.

"Yes, but I didn't ask you, did I?" Elias asks, and Martin's pride smarts but he can deal with that.

"You mentioned earlier a Forsaken court, and just now, that of the Ceaseless Watcher. Are there any others?"

Elias nods, lifting a spoonful of soup thoughtfully. "Fourteen of them," he says. "Fifteen, if you count the Court of the Epoch, which most sensible people do not."

"Name them for me."

Elias looks surprised, but complies. "There's the Court of the Forsaken and the Court of the Ceaseless Watcher, as you summed up," he explains. "The Court of the Everchase, of the Everdark, of the Lightless Flame. There is the Court of the Hive and the Court of the Mother of Puppets, the Court of the Falling Titan and the Court of Slaughter. There's Buried-Beneath and Spiral, overseen by your friend Helen. There's Unknowing and Viscera and I'm forgetting one, give me a moment . . . Ah, the irony. There's the Court of The End. Each Court has its own dominion, its own High Lord, its own beating heart, if you will, as I am for mine. Some tend not to get on so well — the Buried-Beneath and the Falling Titan, for example. But these days, things are relatively calm."

"That's a lot," Martin says helpfully. And then, because he can take the suspense no longer: "Why did you want me here, Mr. Bouchard?"

"You called me Elias before," he says, dismissive. There's an especially loud noise from the fireplace as one of the bigger logs cracks. "Don't stop now. And in truth, I called you here not only to speak with you, but also to make a deal."

"You don't say?" Martin asks drily.

Elias doesn't pick up on the sarcasm and says, "Yes. You've met with Jon already, haven't you?"

Martin remembers the sickened twist to Jon's mouth whenever he mentioned Elias' name, the way his eyes darkened. "Yes," he answers cautiously.

"And what did he say about me? Nothing good, I'd assume?"

"Not really, no." Elias' eyes are hypnotic; Martin can't tear his gaze away.

"But see," he says, tracing a circle on the silk table cover with one long finger, "he's wrong about me. I am not, as he would have you think, cruel or unjust."

Martin would disagree with that, given what Elias himself has just told him, but he bites his tongue.

"In fact, I would go so far as to say that I want to _help_ you."

Now _that_ catches him off-guard. Because never has it ever occurred to him that Elias Bouchard would want to help him. "Sorry?" he asks. "This is coming from the man who made me drink _poison_."

"I didn't _make_ you do anything." He steeples his fingers and rests his chin on them, regarding Martin with his cool, calculating gaze. "I simply gave you a nudge in the right direction, gave you a boost, shall we say, to do the very thing you were trying to learn how to do in the first place. I allowed you to switch places with Jonathan Sims, all in the interest of helping _you_."

Martin's head is reeling. "Switched places?"

"Yes," Elias says, like Martin is an especially thick child. "As we speak, Jon is in his childhood home, the very place where you poisoned yourself a short while ago. A fair trade, I believe."

"So he's free?"

Elias laughs at that, loud and delighted. He laughs for a long time, long enough that Martin shifts in his seat, uncomfortable. He's still kind of laughing when he says, "Martin, please do use your head. Surely it's good for something other than looking pretty?" It's a non-answer, deliberate in its ambiguity, and it's all he can do not to punch Elias hard enough to wipe the insufferable grin off his face.

"Jon," he continues finally, when the last of his mirth has drained away, "can _never_ be free of this place. Gertrude made sure of it. This is as free as he can get. And in exchange for this partial freedom, I took you."

"And what will you do with me, now that you have me here?" he asks, somewhat recklessly. "Will you keep me in your eternal servitude, will you rob me of words as you did the others? Will you take my eyes out of my head and use them as paperweights?"

"I wouldn't dream of it," Elias says, mock-affronted. "In fact, I've instead elected to make a deal with you. I am willing to offer you something infinitely more valuable than even what Jon has. I am offering you your _full_ freedom, devoid of any attachments. I am offering you a chance to get away from Fairy Hill, will even wipe your memories of this entire sordid experience if you wish."

"And what do you want in return?" he asks, cautious.

"I'm asking you for the house."

It's Martin's turn to laugh. "Then you're out of luck. I don't own the house, not even a little bit."

"Actually," Elias says, "if you had gotten a chance to read Gertrude's will before coming to Fairy Hill, you would have seen that, in the absence of an heir, she made one out of you, and passed the house — and all the possessions therein — onto you." And he smiles at Martin, all teeth and charm and wit.

Martin takes a second to be stunned in the face of this revelation before saying, "No." He's more stunned by his own defiance.

"I'm sorry?" Elias blinks, as though unsure if he's heard right.

"I said _no_ ," Martin says, louder. "I don't know what you want with that house, but I know it can't be anything good. I've heard enough of you from Jon, whose word I trust a thousand times more than yours, and I've heard enough from your _own_ mouth to know that you're frankly a pretty shitty person. So no. Whatever you want with Gertrude's house, I won't help you get it."

Elias' grin looks predatory on his face, and for the first time, Martin feels truly scared of him. He leans in close; Martin smells mint and something else, something he can't identify. "I suggest," he says, very, very slowly, "that you reconsider."

Martin takes a deep breath and says, "No. I've made up my mind."

Elias nods and says, still in that dangerously calm voice, "Then you've made a mistake." He leans back again. "I offered you a way out that would give me what I wanted and you your freedom. Now, I will still have what I want, and you will suffer for it. So I ask you again: Have you made up your mind?"

"Yes," Martin says, and it's hardly more than a whisper. _For Jon. I'm doing this for Jon._

 _Okay_.

"Very well," Elias says grimly. "So be it."

And he's struck by such a sickening bout of vertigo that a sob tears itself out of him, a sound of pure panic. The world goes utterly _dark_ and then — he's in a nightmare version of the beautiful dining hall, the faces in the paintings twisted and in agony, and the food that was laid out so beautifully on the table is raw and rotten, the stench nearly unbearable, but that's all nothing compared to Elias, who looks nearly the same as he did before but now, when he looks at him, he sees a shadow of wings spanning horizon to horizon, skin bulging with eyes, each of which is trained directly on _him_.

Just as quickly as it came, it's all gone. He's shaking so hard that he can hardly breathe through the haze of panic panic _panic._

Elias pushes back his chair and stands up. He is just Elias now (if that's what he ever was) and there are no wings, no eyes, just the smile of a man who thinks he's won.

"It was a pleasure speaking with you, Mr. Blackwood," he says, and offers Martin his hand. He takes it. Elias' grip is vice-like, and Martin lets go sooner than is polite, but really, Martin could honestly not care less about social etiquette right now. "I'll be taking my leave now, if it's nothing to you."

And he turns on his heel and exits the room, the massive double doors slamming soundlessly shut behind him.

Inhale, exhale.

"Well, that looked like it didn't go so well," a voice says conversationally, and Martin turns so fast that his neck cricks. Peter Lukas is standing there, wreathed in a fog bank, looking victorious.

"What do _you_ want?" he asks.

"I have my orders," Lukas says, another non-answer. He's standing next to Martin, when did that happen? The smell of soap and salt spray and sea is overpowering. "Elias can be tetchy, sometimes. Though it seems to me you caught him in one of his better moods." Lukas' expression is unreadable. Martin cannot move in his seat, his heart a caged bird in his chest.

"Have you ever been truly alone, Martin?" Lukas asks suddenly. Martin thinks back to that stretch of time before he met Jon, house surrounded from all sides by snow, with nothing to help him fight his way back into the narrative of the world.

"I think so," he answers.

Peter Lukas' smile is tight and does not reach his eyes. "Yes, I can see it on you. Forsaken always leaves its mark on those it wishes to take as its own." He leans down, conspiratorial, and Martin barely suppresses a shiver. "I, of all people, should know."

Martin _can't move_. The shifting, silvery fog is massing at his feet, climbing up his legs like a cancer, and wherever it touches goes numb, static filling his limbs.

"Stop it," he gasps, briny water filling his lungs. " _Stop it._ "

His vision is starting to darken at the edges, everything narrowing until all he can see, hear, _feel_ is the horrible fog, the howling, shifting void of it, the sheer absence of it.

"You'll get used to it, soon enough," Peter Lukas says, his voice faint, like it's coming from the end of a very long tunnel. "Everyone gets used to Loneliness, one way or another."

And then he's gone.

"Peter?" Martin calls out, hating how small, how scared his voice sounds. "Peter! Peter, come _back_!"

But there's nothing. Just the freezing mist, just the swirling void, just the utter lack of feeling. Part of Martin wants to succumb to it, wants to stop fighting. It will hurt less, here. He will be okay, here, alone.

"No," he whispers. "No! _Peter_!" The ground is solid enough beneath his feet; he can hear the sea, rushing waves crashing on rock. Slowly, slowly, his vision returns. He's standing on a beach of black stone, wet and slippery. The sea spray is cool on his skin. It's _freezing_.

He wraps his arms around himself, shivering.

_Give in. Give in. Give in._

_Nothing will hurt anymore. You'll be safe. Just give in._

"Peter?" he asks again, and his voice echoes back to him. He sinks to his knees, the pebbles digging into his skin. But the sensation is not as sharp as it should be. Already he can't remember what it was that Peter said to him, why he was so mad at Elias. Why was he so mad? All Elias wanted to was help him. He offered him everything: a way out, a way to forget, and Martin threw it all right back in his face. He should have listened to him. His mother always told him he was too stubborn, too _big_ for his own good, so bent on his own ideas.

That was Martin's problem, wasn't it? He always caused such a fuss. He weighed down on the people around him, he dragged them back. That was why Jon pushed him through the door. That was why Elias left him to Peter. He dragged people back, and then they realized that they didn't want him, and then they cut him off, like a tree's dead limb.

If he'd just been better, if he'd just gritted his teeth and borne it. If he'd just been stronger, and quieter, and easier to manage. He can hear his mother's voice: " _Stop making such a fuss, Martin_ ," when he was seven and terrified she was going to die of the sickness in her body. " _Be quiet, Martin,_ " when he was eleven and screaming from the awful, awful nightmares that plagued his sleep. " _Oh, honestly, Martin, just pull yourself together already,_ " when he was fourteen and fell out of a tree and trying so hard to be quiet about it, really, he _was_ , but his chest is aching like some great weight is pressing down on it, or maybe like something is trying to push its way out, testing his ribs to see how they give, and breathing is so hard here, the fog forcing its way into his lungs and he knows this loneliness will never end, he will be empty, always, and then, if he's lucky (which he is not) he will eventually die—

_Nothing will hurt here._

He takes a deep breath, lets it out.

_Nothing will hurt here. You will be okay. Just give in. Just give up._

He takes another deep breath and lets the Loneliness spread in him like a disease.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone say 'actually fuck this' in 3 2 1! also hey, what's up with elias? 🤔🤔🤔
> 
> CAN Y'ALL BELIEVE I WROTE AN ENTIRE CHAPTER WITHOUT USING A SINGLE BREAK!!!
> 
> stay tuned for the next chapter in which agnes makes her grand entrance!


	12. interlude: unusual hungers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Jon tells a strange story.** Featuring: childhood, anger, promises sworn over thrice.
> 
> ( _Or: The snake eats its own tail._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is _Equal Proportions_ by David Hilowitz.
> 
> Please read the end notes for information regarding a brief hiatus, as well as a heads-up concerning the update schedule.

_Martin Blackwood! Sorry I couldn't pick up, but please leave a message, thanks!_

**BEEP**

* * *

How presumptuous. To think that it could take your place and no one would notice.

_End of message._

* * *

You know, I was not an easy child. My grandmother had endless patience, I believe, to have borne witness to the entirety of my youth without going insane. But then again, my grandmother has borne witness to many things, this we both know. My grandmother was many things. Impatient was never one of them

I grew bored easily and often. I never liked to read anything I felt I'd read before, which meant that many of the books in our home quickly fell from my good graces. The library was an escape of sorts, I suppose, from the endless drudgery of my days. I was cynical; I pinched the other children when they got on my nerves at school, I was vocal about my distaste. You can imagine how popular this made me. I was any teacher's nightmare, despite the fact that I got good grades, despite the fact that, when I wasn't being unpleasant, I was quiet and studious.

It is not an easy thing, to grow up in a house that has more than one shadow. It is not an easy thing to be a child in this place. Gertrude was not a kind woman. She was hard as rock, with a heart made of diamond. She was unforgiving, relentless.

But Gertrude Robinson is dead. Long live Gertrude Robinson.

_End of message._

* * *

Martin, Martin. Martin with the kind eyes, Martin with the bright smile. Martin. _Mar_ tin. I can never fit your name properly into my mouth. This is because I am afraid I will cut it.

_End of message._

* * *

Where the hell do you hide a door in this house, anyway?

Okay, bad question. Ha ha ha, Jon. Ever the comedian. What I mean to say is, where the hell did _Agnes_ hide her door in this house? If I could, I would saw this place in half, would dissect it like a frog. I hated dissecting frogs. It made me feel like God, and I know that I am unfit to be a god. I am too cruel even for that.

_End of message._

* * *

I am . . . sorry. To you. I owe that to you, not to anybody else. I am sorry. I don’t know how to— everything is so real here, and I don’t know how to—

I— when I walk, I can expect to arrive where I am heading. The hallways don’t twist, nothing grows from the walls. I had to smash every mirror, had to break every clock before I felt even the faintest shadow of sanity. How do you bear it, Martin? When the world flips around you, when you are bodily thrown into reality? How do you walk with that weight on your shoulders?

I am no Atlas. I am not so strong.

_End of message._

* * *

I hate that you've done this to me. You have — crawled your way into my heart and have made yourself a home there, you have invaded me so thoroughly. You, thorn in my side, you, by my side. I once thought you were naive, that you were too small. I do not think this anymore.

_End of message._

* * *

I have been productive today, Martin. Are you proud of me? I turned this house upside down looking for her entrance. I made mincemeat of the place. There is still nothing, so I suppose I will have to look more tomorrow. Always more looking, always more finding. There is always more to be done when you are me.

Gertrude used to call them my rages. That was an understatement. I was . . . sullen, drawn-in on myself. I was _terrible_. But see, Martin, I _chose_ to be terrible, that is the most important thing to me. What I did, I did of my own free volition. Not because someone made me, not because I am a fly caught in the spider's web. I am not a fly, Martin Blackwood, I am the spider. I am not Ariadne or Theseus. I am the minotaur. I have been made to be monstrous and so monstrous I am, and _no one_ can take that away from me, not Gertrude, not you, and certainly not any of those false people, those imitations made of air and coral and foxglove. I am wretched, and my wretchedness is mine alone.

So if I am wretched, what does that make you? The one who poisons himself midway through the narrative, the helpless man in a heap? You are not helpless, Martin Blackwood. I cannot be fooled so easily. You are not helpless, and I do not think you are a man, either.

I think you are a _spider_.

_End of message._

* * *

I think . . . I think that you are my anchor. I think that you are the only thing keeping me bound to myself. The tie that binds, the light that blinds. I am apologetic for being as I am, for being something you've had to fix. We halflings, we witches. There is pride to be had in that, I suppose. I suppose. I remember a time before all this, when the only things I had to concern myself with before going to sleep or waking up were little things, like taking my testosterone or brushing my teeth. How very naive of myself, to believe that anything could ever be that simple.

They say that promises sworn thrice are the most promising of all. So, Martin Blackwood, shall we give it a try?

I vow to find you. I swear I will find you. I promise that I will find you even if it kills me, even if my bones break and my flesh is torn. Does that scare you, or does it comfort you? I think the latter.

Yes, definitely the latter.

_End of message._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Elias wasn't happy with the way I wrote his entrance in the last chapter and is now holding me at gunpoint please help m—)
> 
>  **Regarding the hiatus:** I will be taking a short break until September 13. I have another interlude chapter already written that will be released someday during this time. The reason for this is that the final due date for my IB Personal Project is fast approaching, and I have a lot to do. It'll all by over by the 13th, however, so I will see you all then!
> 
>  **Regarding my update schedule:** Right, let's be honest with each other here: my update schedule is nonexistent, but I have come to post semi-regularly, and there isn't usually a very wide gap between chapters. Sadly, that will be changing as I will be starting my last year of high school next week, and I want to pay attention to my studies. **That does not mean that I will be putting this fic on hold.** Mama didn't raise no quitter! That does mean, however, that there will be larger gaps between updates. I have the entire fic planned out and raring to go, so don't worry about me ditching it.
> 
> Thank you so much for your overwhelming support. This fic would not be what it is without it. Until next time, this is Vera saying over and out :)


	13. interlude: strange music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which we dance until our slippers are worn through.** Featuring: an incentive, a quickening of the senses, a mysterious rescuer.
> 
> ( _Or: Decades ago, an introduction._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagined the music as being something like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWNtMIsF4Cg). Check out more of the artist's work; she's super talnted!
> 
> Content warnings for loss of free will, vomiting, physical injury and mention of sibling death.

Gertrude wakes up.

Her dreams have been full of a strange, wild sort of music of late, a thunderous tune that fills her with an urge to dance until her feet are bleeding and her voice is raw, but it seems that this time she's gone truly insane because the music has bled out of dreamland and into the real world, the music as clear to her as it would have been if the players had set up shop in her room.

Gertrude has never had an itch she didn't scratch, dragging every issue to the forefront of her mind to be analyzed and inspected from every angle. If there is one thing in which she has faith, it is her own mind and its soundness. So she lies awake and waits for the sound to diminish, but it doesn't. If anything, it grows stronger, its inexplicable pull working its way into her heart.

She has lots of practice in sneaking out. When Hetty was alive, they would slip out all the time to have impromptu picnics or to have midnight swims in the nearby pond. Her feet are still skilled in the art, instinctively shying away from the floorboards she knows will squeak. She ducks her head into mother's room; she makes out two figures immobile beneath the blanket, the music not seeming to reach either of them. She passes the locked door of Hetty's room, passes the bathroom, the closet; creeps down the stairs and out the back door.

If anything, the music is louder outside, pounding drums and swinging fiddles, the beat matching her heart step-for-step, vigorous applause, a thousand trumpets blaring on a grassy knoll.

She needs to find out where it's coming from.

Her bare feet inexorably lead her into the garden, pine needles and twigs digging into her skin, and further still, all warning of foxes and other wild beasts fleeing her mind. She has to find out where the music is coming from. Something huge is in the balance, teetering on a precipice, rectifiable only by finding the source of the lilting melody. The drums pound at the same time as her heart.

Past the pond and through the brambles, thorns trying to tear and scratch and claw at her skin but she doesn't care. Around the brook, deeper and deeper into the forest, further in than she's ever gone before, less on by the music. She laughs, a strange, giddy sound that's foreign to her ears. Why doesn't she laugh more? She's wasting her life the way she's living it.

She pushes through boysenberry and stinging nettle, bush and tree, and breaks through into a clearing, momentarily blinded by a bright, brilliant light. She squints and can make out —

It's a raging party, practically a _ball_ , just like in the storybooks. Her mouth splits into a grin and it hurts, her lips chapped and cracking and just how long has it been, how long has she been walking? No matter; she's here now, and she doesn't care that she's barefoot and in a nightgown, doesn't care that her hair is messy and her arms are covered in scratches from the thorns. The music is wild and beautiful and _other_ and it is in the very heart of her, a living thing giving her life anew.

There are people all around the clearing, dancing to the music and standing in cliques off to the sides, shrieking and laughing and screaming and talking, but they are people like Gertrude has never seen before: people with skin the colour of peas and the colour of honey, people with antlers and curling ram's horns, with butterfly wings and songbird wings, with feet turned backwards, with tails and pointed ears and pointed teeth and clawed fingers, with glowing eyes and no eyes, with mouths stained red, with smiles like knives, and each one is so stunningly beautiful, beautiful as stars someone has pulled down from the night sky.

Someone grabs her arm, someone is pulling her closer in; they smell of thyme and something green and decaying.

"Look what I found!" they crow, and push her forward into a group of the beautiful people. She feels exposed before them in their rich finery, in their sweeping gowns and sharp-cut suits, their capes and their doublets. But one of them, a tall, slender woman with silver eyes and a thin, whipping tail, coos in delight and says, "oh, aren't you darling!"

Gertrude has never been called darling before, and she is glad that this ethereal woman was the first to say it to her. The one that brought her into the group is a creature with the head of an owl, eyes wide as saucers, beak clicking furiously. She looks up into their face and they push her so hard that she falls to the ground and there is a great swelling of laughter. Gertrude laughs too, so happy to be the cause of their delight. Another woman, short and with hair the colour of jet, one with eyes that are literally on fire, bends down and hauls her to her feet. She looks so pleased, and Gertrude smiles at her, wide and unfettered.

"What's your name?" she asks, smiling encouragingly.

"Gertrude," Gertrude says. "What's yours?"

The woman gives a surprised titter and says, "You can call _me_ Jude."

"Jude," Gertrude repeats carefully, turning the syllable over in her mouth like a precious jewel. "What a beautiful name you have."

Jude smiles. Her fingers are sharp, and they're painful as they dig into the skin of Gertrude's upper arms, but she doesn't mind. "Tell you what," Jude says. "You can be our friend tonight. Would you like to be our friend?"

Gertrude nods, vigorously, a dopey smile plastered to her face. She would _love_ to be friends with these gorgeous people made of candyfloss, would want for nothing more. The circle of her friends laughs again, and Gertrude is so happy here, so happy that she doesn't care that Jude's fingers are cutting into her skin, or that her back is sore where she hit a rock when she fell.

"Will she remember this, do you think?" the owl-faced creature wonders aloud, and the woman with the tail tuts and answers: "Not unless someone makes her forget. But why would Gertrude want that? She's our friend. She doesn't want to forget us."

She shakes her head no, and the betailed woman beams.

"So what?" a boy wearing a magnificent cape of feathers asks. "We can ask her things and she'll answer us truthfully?"

"She'll do what we want," Jude says. "Watch: Darling Gertrude, tell me, if I were to invite you into my bed, would you follow?"

"Of course," Gertrude answers honestly, and they all shriek with laughter once more. She grins dizzily up at the night sky, littered with stars. "Anything to make you happy."

Jude leans in close. "Come, dance with me," she whispers, delivering the words to Gertrude's ear, and her heart lurches with desire.

"Of course," she says, and allows Jude to steer her towards the dancing people. The song slows and bleeds into something new, something faster and more frantic. Jude takes Gertrude's hands and pulls her into the fray, and it's wonderful and exhilarating, Jude grinning toothily at her before shoving her, hard, and she stumbles before righting herself, dancing alone as Jude watches from the outside, laughing wildly with the boy with the cape.

The music is so loud and something is wrong, Gertrude can hardly hear over the sound of her thundering heart; she twirls and twirls, like she's trapped in a music box. The song changes, the dancers decouple and leave and new ones come but Gertrude can't stop _dancing_ , her feet are in agony, her legs wobbling but she can't stop, and why did she come here, what madness drove her from her bed, who are these not-people, what's wrong with her? She tries to shout for help but her lungs are barely pulling in enough air to sustain her, even though she's decided to call for aid just this once, pushing past the barrier of her pride, and the fiddler's arm is a blur and she's going to die here, she's sure of it, she will dance herself to death —

Someone grabs her arm and _pulls_.

The next minute is a flash of terror and disorientation as her rescuer pulls her to their side, their body warmer than should be possible, marching her out of the fray and Gertrude feels like she's going to be sick; she bends over and hurls into the brush, heaves with all her might and sweat is dripping into her eyes, her nightgown is torn beyond hope of repair and she can't believe herself, cannot begin to imagine the scope and horror of what she has done, what has happened to her.

When she returns to herself enough to be aware of her surroundings, she realizes that someone has their hands clamped over her ears. She yanks herself free and all of a sudden the music is back and she is filled with that stupid, ridiculous joviality —

The hands return, the music is drowned out. Her vision blurs; her rescuer guides her further into the trees. And then they let go but there's no more music, just normal forest sounds, crickets singing and owls — the normal kind, not the kind with humanoid bodies — hooting from the canopies.

The un-person who dragged her from the dance is beside her, she can feel their warmth. She turns around and is nearly robbed of her breath once more, for this woman is more perfect than even the others, tall and willowy, with ginger hair and a gown of swirling reds and oranges giving the impression that she is actively on fire. But there's something different about her expression, something oddly akin to guilt.

"Thank you," Gertrude grits out, her voice raspy and raw, and the woman flinches. Maybe at the sound of it, maybe at her meaning. "I owe you a debt for rescuing me from there." She reminds herself that this walking bonfire may try to hurt her yet, but she's just so tired and she can't bring herself to care.

"Consider it a gift, freely given," the woman says. She is wearing a thin scarf which she removes and sweeps around Gertrude's shoulders, fastening it at her throat with a clever little knot. Warmth floods her shaking body instantly. "The Gentry are cruel to those like you, Jude Perry most of all. I spotted you as she pulled you into the revels, and I tried to come quickly, but Annabelle pulled me into a conversation." She says all of this very fast.

Gertrude pushes her hair out of her face and says, "Why did you save me?"

"What do you mean —"

Gertrude waves her hand impatiently, frustration mounting. "No, none of that. I mean _why did you save me_?"

The woman works her jaw and says, "Because you never asked for —"

" _Why_?"

She throws her arms up in exasperation and says, "Rowan, what do you want me to _say_ , mortal? I did you a favour and do not want or expect recompense for it, not now nor ever."

"Thank you," Gertrude says icily. "Thank you for saving me." There's a tense moment of silence in which neither says a word. "I suppose I'll be heading back home, then."

The woman's arm darts out, stopping her before she can even begin to move. "You mustn't," she says, "because the Folk are out in force tonight, and you might be found once more. The music pulled you in for a reason; don't give them another."

"Then what do you propose I do about it?"

The woman takes in a deep breath (Gertrude notices that her skin is lit up from the inside, like there is a fire in her chest in place of a heart) and says, "I will walk you to your home."

Gertrude snorts and pulls the scarf tighter around herself. "In your dreams, princess."

Confusion flits across her elegant features. "I'm not a princess."

"Whatever. I'm not showing you where I live."

The woman bites her lip and says, "And if I give you my word?"

"That depends on what you word is worth," Gertrude says, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

"I cannot lie," the fiery woman says bluntly. "None of the Fair Folk can. We rely upon deception and half-truths and," she cocks her head, "enchantments."

Gertrude thinks this over. If she were fully herself she would spit at the woman's feet and tell her to sweet-talk someone else, but she's not fully herself so she says, "Swear it."

The woman looks relieved as she says, "I swear to you that I will not lead you astray, nor will I divulge the location of your home to anyone else. I swear that I will not return unless you will it to be so. Satisfied?"

Gertrude sighs and says, "Fine. Let's go." She isn't sure, but her wayward feet are pointing her South, and she trusts herself, she trusts herself enough to pull her home. The woman nods dutifully and follows behind her.

They march on in silence, largely undisturbed; at one point, Gertrude thinks she sees someone up ahead, but there is no one. At another time, a small, toad-like creature about the size of a large stone hops into their way and says, " _My lady flame_ ," accompanied by an awkward curtsy before hopping along once more. There is no more music.

When the treeline breaks and Gertrude sees the house, at the end of the garden, she almost weeps with relief. Her strange companion asks, "Is this your home?"

"Yes," Gertrude says. "Yes, this is my home." She turns to face the woman and is shocked to see that she looks almost sad, almost like she is Gertrude's good friend, unwilling to watch her part.

"Then I suppose this is where we go our separate ways," she says, and gives Gertrude a small smile before turning to walk back into the woods.

She's not sure what makes her do it, but Gertrude calls out. "Wait."

The woman turns so that she's in profile.

"What's your name?"

The woman laughs quietly and says, "Curious one, aren't you?" A beat. "You can call me Agnes."

"Gertrude," Gertrude says, sticking out a hand, and Agnes shakes it. Her skin is soft.

"Well then, Gertrude," Agnes says. "I wish you all the best."

And she turns and vanishes into the trees.

* * *

She dreams and there is no wild music, no women made of fire, nothing but mundanity.

* * *

It's the next week that Gertrude realizes she still has Agnes' scarf, bunched up beneath her pillow where she'd shoved it the previous night. It smells of ash and cinnamon, the fabric silky and sinuous.

"Agnes," Gertrude says aloud.

A minute passes, and really, what was she expecting —

Someone throws something against her window. She scrambles out of bed, yanking back the curtains and someone is standing in the yard beneath her room, someone dressed in a gown of red and orange, someone who seems to be glowing in the midnight.

Gertrude grins and slips out of her room to greet her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned next week for another gertrude/agnes interlude chapter. after that, back to (kind of) regularly scheduled programming once my project is done!


	14. interlude: the significance of tangerines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which an oath is taken.** Featuring: a confessional, a swearing of loyalty, lovesickness in the first degree.
> 
> ( _Or: They were lovers first._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for non-explicit allusions to sexual content.
> 
> The song for this chapter is _Stray Italian Greyhound_ by Vienna Teng.

She is still unused to the presence of Agnes in her bed, her body warm and surprisingly solid next to her own.

"What's your favourite fruit?" she asks, her breath hot on Gertrude's skin. She is curled up on the bed like a seashell, like a spiral. Her question is also a spiral, in that it makes no sense.

"I don't really care enough to have one," Gertrude admits. She knows that most people have favourite fruits. Mother likes apples; Hetty loved mangoes. Gertrude doesn't understand this odd fascination with classification, with hierarchy. You either like a food or you don't. There's no use in making things needlessly complicated.

But Agnes clearly thinks otherwise because she gasps, shooting straight up like a shot in the dark, her ginger hair whipping Gertrude's cheek. She is always glowing, her pupils like embers, her skin lit up from the inside, and Gertrude tracks the movement with her eyes. "You're joking!" she says, loudly, and Gertrude is glad that they're alone in the house. "You _have_ to have a favourite fruit. You just have to!"

"I like bananas," she offers lamely. Agnes looks down at her with an expression bordering on distaste before she stands up. She's wearing a thin nightdress, one of Gertrude's. The folk do not have nightdresses, as it turns out. There is no such thing as casual comfort there, where Agnes comes from. When Gertrude first saw her, she was wearing a magnificent gown of swirling reds and oranges and yellows, like a bonfire given heart, beautiful and terrible at once. She remembers clearly, because it's seared into her mind, how they first met. But she looks much the same in this, in white cotton patterned with blue butterflies, her long legs pale in the darkness of her room. It's hiked up, hitched on her left thigh. Gertrude reaches out and pulls it back down into place, and Agnes grabs her hand, slender fingers curling around her wrist.

"Come on," she says, mischief in her voice. Gertrude heaves a great sigh but clambers out of bed to follow. Agnes beams at her, hand still around her wrist, and pulls her out of the room.

Agnes makes quick work of the house, feet sure and careful as she runs down the stairs, Gertrude holding in her laughter as she tries not to trip. Agnes leads her all the way to the kitchen, turning on the lights, and the kitchen wakes up, humming with electricity.

"Let's see," Agnes hums, letting go of her hand. The loss is obvious. She takes a quick tour of the space, bare feet slapping against the tile, standing on her toes to see the top of the fridge and stooping low to peer at the plumbing beneath the sink before finally finding what she's looking for: a ripe tangerine from the fruit basket. 

Agnes makes a victorious sound in her throat before grabbing Gertrude's hand again and leading her out into the backyard. She sinks onto the wooden porch despite there being a perfectly usable set of chairs just behind her, leaning her head against the wall. She grins impishly up at Gertrude, who gives her a hesitant smile back. She thinks that she has done more smiling in her short time of knowing Agnes than she has all her life before then.

"Sit down," she says, patting the wood next to her, so Gertrude does.

Agnes peels the tangerine with nimble fingers. Gertrude is a little bit in love with Agnes' fingers, slender and deft, her nails rounded and her palms smooth. They move like automaton, like clever little machines. She thinks of pressing her fingers to her mouth, to kissing Agnes' wrist. The night air is gentle against her skin, and there is an entire symphony of crickets singing from the grass, a lone owl hooting from the treeline. If she concentrates hard, she can pick up the distant sound of foxes as they bark at one another in their strange, guttural language.

"The thing about tangerines," Agnes explains quietly, splitting the fruit in half, "is that they are not made for individual consumption. Which is why you are here. Under the Hill, we use them for bonding ceremonies. Half and half for two wholes." She peels a slice off one of the halves. "Open your mouth," she commands, so Gertrude does. Agnes places the fruit on her tongue and pushes her jaw shut. Gertrude chews obediently, swallows, the juice sweet and sour at once. Agnes smiles at her, expectant.

"It's good," Gertrude says, and is surprised to find that she means it. Agnes beams. She looks like a saint, haloed by faint golden light. The girl with the mouth of fire. The girl with the fist of flame.

"I thought so," she says, a bit smugly, and peels off another slice. There is a strange intimacy to it, trading slices of tangerine on the wooden porch.

When the fruit is done and finished, they sit quietly for a few minutes. Agnes breaks the silence.

"I wish you could come with me," she says, a bit sad, a bit wistful.

"Under the Hill?" Gertrude asks.

Agnes nods. "You would love it as much as I love it here. I could give you a dress made of starlight, a crown of thorns. We could go to balls and revels, dance until our feet were sore and we were both sick of laughter. I could give you anything your mortal heart desired."

"I don't need any of that," Gertrude says, a bit stunned by the scope of this confession. Her heart pounds whenever Agnes mentions Fairy Hill, a mixture of desire and revulsion that makes her nauseous.

Agnes shrugs, picks at the porch. "I could give it to you all the same. But you can't go there, so I suppose there's no use wishing for it."

Gertrude thinks of the King, of whom Agnes is so fearful, and decides that the two of them will do something about it someday.

"But think about it," Agnes continues. "I, harbinger of flame, and you like a knight by my side. Agnes and Gertrude." She turns her head, eyes luminous. "My Gertrude."

Desire roils in her gut. "I am already your knight," she says, and reaches for Agnes' hand. "Nothing you could do would send me from your sight. I am yours."

"Are you?" Agnes asks. "Are you mine?"

Gertrude isn't thinking straight. She feels feverish. The column of Agnes' throat is pale in the half-dark.

"I am yours," she swears. "I am forever yours."

Agnes smiles at her, quick and free of worry, and Gertrude feels drunk on it. Men write love stories and say that their characters are lovesick, but Gertrude is certain that not a single one of them truly understands the feeling. To be lovesick is to be overcome by your desire, by your devotion; to be lovesick is to be consumed.

She leans in and kisses Agnes, and she's done this before but it's different this time; hot breath against her skin, Agnes' hands on hers. She pulls back and Agnes grins and crosses the distance between them again; Gertrude pushes her back against the wall, exploring the curve of her lip, the cut of her jaw. Agnes makes a soft, breathy noise that sends a sharp spike of longing through her. She pulls back, flushed, and Agnes is looking at her with wide eyes, and they've done this before but never quite like this never with the feeling that this is some kind of ritual, some kind of oath.

"Come back up to my room," Gertrude says.

Agnes bites her lip. "Are you sure—"

" _Yes_." She feels a bit like she's about to crawl out of her skin. Agnes smiles at her again, and there's that word: lovesick, lovesick. Poisoned by her adoration.

Agnes leads the way up, a mirror image, a pantomime of not too long ago. Gertrude's room is dark, but she can still see. Sees the way Agnes' eyes glow.

"Are you _sure_?" she asks.

"Of course," Gertrude whispers. "Are you?"

"Of course," she echoes, and pulls Gertrude down with her, lets Gertrude push her down on the mattress so that she's lying on top of her, the way Agnes is smiling up at her making her dizzy.

"You're very beautiful," Gertrude says, and Agnes tucks a lock of her dark hair behind her ear, her skin warmer than Gertrude's.

"And you are radiant," Agnes whispers. Gertrude kisses her again, and again, and again. Kisses the line of her jaw and the side of her neck, and it's clumsy and sweet and Agnes is so warm, so _solid_ beneath her; her inexperience is glaringly obvious but Agnes doesn't seem to care, a religion in a nightdress, a saint on fire, pliant under her hands. Milk-white thigh, the smooth plane of her stomach, all of her laid bare.

Gertrude is never sleeping again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! this is the last of the interlude chapters, and we get back to regular posting sometime soon after the 11th! thank you for your patience!


	15. the woman on fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which the deceiver is caught in the act.** Featuring: a saint, a saint, a saint on fire.
> 
> ( _Or: Your shadow is taller than you are._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is _Oxford Comma_ by Vampire Weekend.
> 
> Content warnings for violence.

In the end, the passageway is not so hard to find. Despite overindulging in discretion, Gertrude preferred simplicity above all else, and this meant that so many of her secrets were kept right out in the open, trivial without some sort of backstory. And so he thinks about Gertrude and Agnes, who saw each other so often those two summers, and about how they must have needed some convenient way to get to one another; he thinks about how Agnes is a flaming saint; he thinks about how the fireplace in the library is bigger than any fireplace has a right to be.

And he laughs.

* * *

The passage is unpleasant, to say the least. The tunnel hidden behind the fireplace is long and long unused, the walls thick with dust and smeared with ash that finds its way inside his mouth, inside his nose. It falls into his mouth so that when he finally emerges, knees sore from crawling, his eyes are streaming tears of irritation and he's bent over with a hacking cough.

It takes him a few minutes to get his bearings. He feels a bit dizzy, a bit lost, like he can't see as well. But when he finally lifts his head, he manages to piece the scene together fairly quickly. He's in a house, that much is clear. There are no windows in the room he's crawled his way into, no furniture; only a few sofas draped with heavy drop cloth, the walls plastered with a faded floral wallpaper. All in all, it has the air of a beautiful place left to abandon, opulence turned filthy. Everything is covered in a thin layer of dust — and then his eyes catch on the footsteps, cutting a clean path out of the room.

Not so abandoned after all, then.

He tries Seeing who's with him but he's struck by such an intense wave of nausea that he actually gags, his head throbbing sickeningly. He takes a shuddering breath. No Beholding, then. He'll have to do things the old way, which he doesn't mind as much as he thought he would.

He tries to bat the dust off his clothes (to no avail) before setting out to follow the trail. As it turns out, the house is far larger than he'd thought it would be, the parlour leading to a hall which branches out to another hall on one end and a steep, angular staircase on the other. The footsteps lead through the corridor, so he abandons his curiosity, the parasite inside of him clawing at his skin, saying _Know, know, know,_ and he continues with the trail. The prints are barefoot and clearly recent, and he makes sure that his feet align with them out of some age-old superstition.

From what he can see, the rest of the house is as empty as the parlour. What little furniture comes into his way is either in such a state of disrepair that it's hard to imagine what it might've looked like under better circumstances, or hidden beneath a white sheet. The lanterns are all unlit and the air is cold, making him wish he'd maybe grabbed a sweater.

(But see, all the sweater's in the house are either Gertrude's or Martin's and he's not prepared to face his feelings for either of them, and he's definitely not going to run around in one of Martin's sweaters, the very thought driving a sharp ache through his chest.)

The path ends in a small antechamber. Jon has an iron knife strapped to his arm; he hadn't taken it off, after the changeling debacle. He doesn't _regret_ what he did to the imposter, per se; it was never alive to begin with, was just a mockery, a fake. He's grateful for it as he steps into the room to confront the woman studying one of the many tapestries adorning the walls inside.

"Agnes?" he asks cautiously. He doesn't have a physical description to go off, can only trust in his own capabilities of assessment. He is the judge, and the jury, and the executioner.

The woman turns to face him. She's short and sturdily-built, her black hair cut into a facsimile of a buzzcut. "That's me," she says with a smile, and he notices that there's a gap in her front teeth, the detail oddly humanizing.

Something is wrong.

"I don't understand," he says slowly. Agnes is watching him patiently, her eyes an unnatural shade of gold. "Weren't you trapped somewhere?"

"Is this not a prison?" she counters, spreading her arms wide to demonstrate the _this_ ness of her location. Jon narrows his eyes.

"They said you were mired in the dark, where even the brightest of your flames was only a shadow. This place doesn't seem so dark to me."

Agnes doesn't answer, just smiles her unnerving, gap-toothed smile, scratches at her shoulder. She's wearing a black tank top. "I suppose fire finds its way," she says pleasantly. And to demonstrate, she sticks up her middle finger, which is currently set on fire. He's seen enough dramatics of this sort to not be too surprised. She wrinkles her nose at him and sticks the finger into her mouth, the flame going out with an audible hiss.

Jon crosses his arms and says: "I don't believe you."

The tapestry Agnes was inspecting so closely is a beautiful thing despite its worn state, a faded red embroidered with a golden tree.

A flicker of confusion passes over Agnes' face, there and then gone. There's something weird going on with her finger, the one she set on fire. "What's there not to believe?" she asks, rocking on her feet once. There's something strange about the way her skin fits on her— it looks too dull, almost waxen. "I am Agnes Montague."

No, he does have one thing to go off. "Didn't you— Didn't you get hurt, when you stole the crown with Gertrude? Didn't the King scar you?"

She doesn't say anything, but she isn't smiling anymore. Small victories.

It all clicks into place.

"You're not Agnes Montague."

Agnes' face twists. "So clever," she says, and her skin is — practically sloughing off of her, melting like wax and dripping and hardening and she looks the same and she looks different. She's just another pretender, just another crude imitation, akin to the mound of flowers he left in the library of the real Sims house. "You're so clever, Jonathan Sims."

"Who are you, and what do you want?"

The woman spreads her arms again, and it's so obvious that they're not mad of skin and bone, so clearly, glaringly obvious. "I am Jude Perry," she says, "and if it's nothing to you, I'm going to kill you now."

She lunges at him.

Jon doesn't shout, and even if he'd wanted to, there wouldn't have been any time. She's quick, too quick— she's tackled him to the floor in seconds. His head hits the floor with a sick thud, an awful pain cracking through his skull. And Jude is laughing. He is so _sick_ of people laughing at him.

"I'm impressed, you know?" she asks, fingers pushing against his chest, and he can't reach his knife, can only stare, terrified, up at her. "I've tricked a lot of people like that. So good for you!" She grabs his hand, and only then does he realize that her fist is on fire.

For a second, there's nothing.

And then there is _something_ , a horrible, searing _pain_ and the irony is that his hand feels not only like it's being burned but also frozen and there's a sound like maybe someone is screaming, and he realizes: it's coming from him.

Question: Your body heals itself automatically, but the source of injury is unmoving. What happens then?

Answer: It varies.

Jude has finally pulled her hand away, both of her palms aflame now and she grinning down at him maniacally, wax dripping from her face, her golden eyes bright. She probably thinks he's delirious with pain. She definitely doesn't know about the healing, which is the only reason why he's able to shove her off of him, cradling his hand to his chest.

"Oh, _very_ good!" she says. Jon's hand is probably scarred but the pain is ebbing away, and he thinks he can probably use it now. "I thought you'd be easy. They said you'd be easy."

"Then they lied," Jon snaps. "I'm like a fucking cockroach." He needs to find the perfect moment, and he'll only have a second to act once it's shown itself. Jude throws herself at him again, going for his face, and Jon grabs her by the forearm and _pulls_ , ducking inside her reach, too close for her to do anything but shriek in surprise as he takes the knife and plunges it into the side of her throat.

What happens next is almost comical. Jude's body tries to fix itself but the knife is iron and she can't do anything to help herself. "Take it out," she says, and her tone might be angry if her words sounded like anything other than— nothing. Just, nothing. "Alright, fine!" And she's really melting, and there's wax all over his hands, and oh, he's never going to get it off. "I'm sorry for burning your hand, now get this—" She doesn't finish, because she doesn't have a mouth anymore. There's a gargling noise, and then she goes silent. A few seconds later, there's a puddle of steaming wax on the floor, and only then does Jon begin to shake because—

_He's killed someone._

Inhale, exhale.

_He's killed someone. He's killed someone. He's killed someone, God help him, he has killed someone._

He thinks that maybe he should get the knife but he doesn't want to go anywhere near the wax. The stuff is all over his hands — his _hand_ , which is scarred in the perfect image of a hand, already a dull colour like an injury that had happened years and years ago instead of mere minutes. Like a childhood injury.

It doesn't even hurt anymore.

"Compartmentalize," he whispers to himself, squeezes his eyes shut. "There will be time to think about t-this later. You're fine. You're _fine_." He opens his eyes and stares at the tapestry some more.

It doesn't take much effort to pull it down. It falls easily, landing in folds and releasing a veritable mushroom cloud of dust that leaves him bent double and coughing for the second time in not too long.

There's a door set into the wall, concealed by the hanging. He would laugh, if he didn't feel so sick.

 _I'm fine. I'm fine._ He's fine.

He opens the door.

It's not locked or anything and, really, they're not even _trying_ anymore. He steps over the threshold and the world immediately goes white. It takes him a second to realize that it's mist, clinging to his clothes and wreathing around him like a snake. And he can _See_ , so there's that. In the distance, he can hear waves crashing against rock, and further still he feels— something else. Something faded and washed-out but still alive.

He stumbles through the fog for a bit, cursing the Lonely and its stupid big-ness, and again wishes he'd brought a sweater because it's _really cold_.

The light flickers. The sea breathes.

The real Agnes Montague is asleep when Jon finally finds her. Actually, _finds_ is a rather strong word, because he's honing in on her like a hunting dog but he only sees her when he practically trips over her body. For a single heart-stopping second he thinks she's dead. But no, something that is not his brain supplies: she's still alive, still clinging to life. She's slumped against a tall boulder, legs folded under her in an awkward position, her ginger hair a nest atop her head. And then there is the matter of her scar. Jon is no stranger to scars, to other people sinking their claws into you and leaving behind proof, but hers is worse than any he's ever sustained; it starts at her jaw and crawls down her neck, disappearing into her dress and trailing down her arm. Her fingertips are stained black as soot. Jon really does not want to wake her up but what other options does he have? He nudges her shoulder, which is cold, and for another second he's convinced he's come all this way for the corpse of Gertrude's lover, when her eyes shoot open. She registers the chilly fogbank with wild eyes, and then Jon. He feels a bit weird, a bit creepy hunched over her like this.

"Agnes?" Jon asks. Agnes' eyes are wide, so wide. "Agnes Montague?"

"Who—" her voice sounds awful, rough and grating. She clears her throat, ties again, and it's a bit better this time. "Who are you?"

"I'm Jonathan Sims." he sits down on a small rock facing her; she pulls herself up so that she's no longer slumped on the floor. "I'm Gertrude's grandson."

Her breath hitches and then, very quietly, she starts to cry.

"Oh, uh," Jon says awkwardly because he's never been very good at comforting people. He reaches out and pats her knee, and notices that she's crying and laughing at the same time, shoulders shaking. She wipes her tears away.

"Of course," she sniffs. "Of course . . ."

"I'm here to get you out," he starts, and she laughs again, a sharp, disjointed sound.

"And I'm an elephant," she says. "Buzz off, Jonathan Sims or whoever you are. I don't want to talk to you. Leave me alone."

"Really."

She scowls. Even her anger is faded here. "Go away."

"What can I do to prove it to you?"

Agnes' feet are bare, and Jon notices: she has long, skinny toes, and narrow ankles. Is it normal for her to have such vulnerable-looking feet?

"Swear it three times," she says.

Jon sighs, relieved, because this, at least, he can do. Promises thrice-sworn are old magic, unbreakable vows. "I swear I am Jonathan Sims. I swear I am Gertrude Robinson' grandson. I swear I am here to get you out."

Agnes looks a little surprised but she shrugs and pulls her legs up, resting her chin on her knees. "You're the first person who's visited me in ages," she says, and he feels something awful and empty at that. "Ages and ages. What took you so long?"

"I didn't know where you were before now," he says. "But I came when I did. I uh— I have a favor to ask of you, actually."

"Of course," she says humourlessly. "And what would that be?"

"I need your help in finding something in the house," he explains, "a door, I guess, that can take me into the Beholding's Estate."

"Why," she says, scratching her shoulder, "would you want to go there?"

"There's someone I need to find."

"Huh," she says, and that's all for a few moments. Already the Lonely is pulling at him, swallowing him up. "I'll help you."

"Sorry?"

"I said I'll help you," she says, a tad tetchily. "Don't make me change my mind."

"Oh, uh, excellent." He'd thought it would take a lot more persuading on his part, but Agnes is standing up, so he does too and offers her his unburned hand. "I'm glad to hear it."

She takes his hand. "Lead the way, Jonathan Sims," she says, and her voice cracks.

Jon leads the way. She doesn't let go of his hand all the way out of the Lonely, all the way out of the abandoned house; and when they're back in the real world and she's standing in the front garden, overgrown grass tickling her calves, face upturned to the sun: she still has not let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got sick of staring at this chapter so i posted it — i'm sorry it's so stilted :(
> 
> anyway, hiatus over! yay! tysm for reading!!


	16. transmissions from the borderlands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Martin is alone — Why is he alone?** Featuring: I'm not supposed to be here by myself. There's someone I'm supposed to remember, but I can't—
> 
> ( _Or: Sometimes, Eurydice can save herself._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for The Lonely just like, in general.
> 
> The song for this chapter is _Ribbon_ by Billie Marten!

The fear is quieter here, by this forgotten seaside. All of it is — the grief, the fear, the uncertainty of it all. It's faded, washed-out. He's languishing in martyrdom, but it's not so bad. He sits on the pebbly beach and watches as the waves crash against the jagged black rocks, the seaspray sharp as knives. He — he _likes_ it here, he thinks, he likes this strange loneliness. He likes the quiet. He likes the cold.

Funny, because he never used to like the cold very much. Cold meant winter and winter meant flus and higher electricity bills and worn boots falling apart at the seams. _Cold_ was synonymous with _hardship_. But here, there's none of that. Here there's just . . . _nothing_.

(Distantly, he remembers: _there's somewhere I need to be. There's something important I'm missing._ But the part of him that thinks it is removed from the whole.)

He's never been good at remembering things, apparently. Three, two, one. His heart is a funny thing, steady in his chest.

He sits on the pebbly shore and watches the waves.

He never really used to like water, either, or at least, not wide expanses of it. Never liked oceans and rivers and lakes; other people said that they were serene, peaceful, but Martin looked and saw a thousand accidents waiting to happen. There are many ways to die when near water, drowning the very least of them. He doesn't know what changed, to have him sitting here without any of that old gnawing worry.

Maybe nothing did.

He's so tired, but he doesn't sleep. He dreams standing up: dreams he's back in the hospital, always the hospital. He's sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs and there's a clock, somewhere, loud even over the steady whirr of machinery. The chair's at a weird angle so that all he can really see of the woman in the bed is her hand, bony and blue-veined, resting on top of the white sheets. He can hear her breathing, slow, laboured. Her fingers twitch, calling him forward, so he gets up — his jacket is so _loud_ , he should save up to buy something better — and walks over to her, hovering nervously at her bedside and she's talking, he knows this, but there are no words. Her face is a smudge, like someone pressed their thumb to a sculpture and pulled. Martin doesn't know what's happening but he knows this is important.

This is important.

(No, it's not.)

There's fog in the room, thick and heavy and cold. His mother is still talking. She's never said this much to him, ever.

She doesn't like it very much when he talks, he knows this. She's never said it outright but there's something telling in the curve of her shoulders, the dart of her eyes, but he needs her to know he doesn't understand what she's saying, that it's just a low murmur, that there are no words, that he's sorry that he wasn't a better son, that he's sorry he is too much and not enough, that he's sorry — well, he's filled with these endless platitudes so what's the point, really?

The fog is all encompassing.

He blinks and he's back on the shore, and there's a man next to him.

For a brief second: a sharp spike of panic, pure and simple, before it's dulled over again, smoothed away like a wrinkle. The man is tall, has broad shoulders, is wearing a thick wool coat. He's looking pensively out over the water, and Martin wants both to talk to him and to shy away.

"Sorry," Martin says, and his voice is hoarse with disuse. He clears his throat and tries again, and his voice is startlingly loud. The man twitches like he hadn't realized Martin was there until now which, okay, fair. "Where did you come from."

"Hard to say," the man says. He doesn't say anything else.

"Why are you here?" he tries again. The man turns his eyes onto him, and they're white, wraith-eyes. _I know you. Where have I seen you before?_

"I am here because I want to be." He folds his arms behind his back, amends: "I think."

"Me, too," Martin says. This is uncomfortable. He wants the man to leave, but he isn't, and part of him is saying: _Move!_ And a pettier part of him is saying: _I was here first!_

"My name is Martin," Martin says, because an introduction seems in order. "And you are?"

The man's face changes so that he looks almost distressed, or as close to it as he can manage. "My name?" he asks.

"You have one, don't you?"

"Don't be daft," the man scowls. "Of course I have a name."

"What is it, then?" Martin challenges.

The man frowns some more. His face doesn't look like it's used to frowning (or smiling, or anything, really, apart from a mask of impassiveness) so the effect is generally disquieting. He looks like what the living version of the man on the boxes of frozen fish looks like. Who else does he know that looks kind of like that? He can't remember, really, but he knows there was someone—

"It's Mordechai," the man says, sounding surprised.

"Mordechai," Martin repeats. "Pleased to meet you."

"The sentiment is not returned," Mordechai says stiffly. Martin does not take offence.

They stay in uncomfortable silence for a bit. It was never like this with Jon when they were together—

_Wait._

Jon. There's a memory here somewhere, he can practically feel it, could reach out and touch it. Jon. Jon who? He can't—

"It's so peaceful here," Mordechai murmurs, and the memory is gone, spun sugar in water.

"Yeah," Martin says. "Yeah, it is."

When he looks again, the man is gone.

* * *

Martin loses track of himself.

He steps outside of time.

* * *

He dreams he's fifteen again, and it's late at night, and he should probably go to sleep if he wants to get through tomorrow. He's so tired, now. Always so tired. Should people his age be so tired?

He's not sleepy. She's asleep, probably, and if she's not, she'll be sitting up in bed, staring morosely out the window.

Martin knows very little, but what he knows, he knows for sure. He knows that bills pile up fast, and that they're running low on milk. He knows he has his mother's sad eyes and his father's temper. He knows his mother does not like looking at him, but surely she must like _him_. He is fifteen and he knows these things. He just knows.

Fifteen year-olds are rarely as obtuse as people think they are.

He should go to sleep, but he doesn't want to. He has a book from the library, so he huddles under the covers because the heating is turned off in his room and he beams his flashlight down on the page and reads about people falling in love and falling in love and falling in love.

* * *

The memory surprises him. He's walking along the shoreline when something jerks it loose, and suddenly he remembers: automata-hands and bony wrists and a wry smile. There's a name there, too, somewhere, just outside of his reach. And no matter how hard he tries, he can't remember it. He makes a noise of frustration and then the mist is there, cool and comforting, wrapping around his shoulders.

He's safe here.

* * *

Somewhere, in a distant corner of his mind, Martin knows this is not right. But that part of him is — trapped under the floorboards, a still-beating heart. Ha. He never really liked Poe, thought he was too macabre, too bent on the romanticism of the grisly. But he understood why people liked him. Tear up the floorboards. There, the evidence.

 _Tear up the floorboards_.

Underneath the floor was a secret—

A house. There was a house—

His heart is stirring, pulling itself out of its lethargy. A house beneath the house, a secret beneath a secret, a man long-lost—

Who is he? He is Martin. Martin what?

"Blackwood," he whispers. His voice is nothing in the air, so he says it louder: "My name is Martin Blackwood."

 _Yes, good,_ a voice in him says. _Go on._

"My name is Martin Blackwood, and I—" He looks down at his hands, and they're shaking. "My name is Martin Blackwood. My _name_ is Martin _Blackwood_."

_What else?_

A house beneath a house.

His eyes go wide.

"My name is Martin Blackwood, and I'm a nurse for Gertrude R- Robinson? Gertrude Robinson, who is dead."

 _There's someone else,_ the voice says gently.

"Gertrude Robinson lived in a— a big house, on a hill—" A hill? There was another hill, wasn't there? Sharp teeth, clink of glass, mismatched eyes. "—And she had a grandson named J- Jonathan—" and the fog is back, curling around his ribcage and he can't lose this, no, _he can't_.

"Sims, Jonathan Sims who was trapped beneath the . . . he was trapped beneath the Hill, and I went there, too, because I wanted to— I wanted—"

 _You’re almost finished_ , the voice says.

"Because I wanted to save him."

And just like that, it's all back.

_And just like that, it's all back._

"Oh, Oh God," he whispers, because he _remembers_ and the weight of it all is so heavy on his shoulders, he's _freezing cold_ and it's so _windy_ , and there's something else, something new, a door — ?

Why is there a door?

It's yellow, so yellow, and as he watches, it opens (and opens, and opens) and out of it steps a woman, if a woman could look like a headache.

"Martin Blackwood," she says, and her voice sounds like cursive in the air. "Come. This is not where you meet your end."

She puts a hand on his shoulder and leads him inside.

The door closes behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry it takes so long to update!! school is hard!!
> 
> as always, you can find me on tumblr @fairy-hill! i love and appreciate each and every one of you!! mwah!
> 
> tune in next time for that lonely eyes content™ ;)


	17. lighthouse-keeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which the situation is assessed.** Featuring: a hook, a heart, an eye.
> 
> ( _Or: Sometimes, loving someone is harder than letting go._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the song for this chapter is _Top to Toe_ by Fenne Lily

"You called for me?" Elias asks. He steps down onto the ground and is immediately assaulted by the overwhelming smell of salt and sea. He can hear gulls screaming in the air and, if he focuses very hard, siren song from somewhere down below. The Forgotten Tower is perched precariously on the slick black stone bordering the sea, the ghostly light beaming out of the lamp at its crown cutting through the dark night, lit lanterns lining the perimeter of the observation deck; a fine rain speckles his skin, cool and sharp. He can See Peter, hunched over the railing at exactly the opposite end of the wraparound ledge. He frowns, and he walks

"Peter?"

Peter doesn't jump. He's used to silence and absence, especially here, in his own Court, but he's also used to Elias and his mannerisms. He turns around to face Elias, brows furrowed. 

"Let me see your eyes," he says immediately, and Elias should be used to this but he still isn't, not really, even though it's exactly the thing he would do if he were Peter.

He doesn't fight. He stands, patiently, as Peter takes his face in his hands (far gentler than one would expect from him, with his hulking frame, his calloused palms) and peers into his eyes.

When he's certain that both of Elias' eyes are the same colour, Peter pulls back. "It's you?"

"Almost one hundred percent," he jokes, and it's in poor taste, they both know it. Peter huffs, and pulls him into a crushing hug.

"It's never been so long before," he whispers, and Elias closes his eyes, breathes in the smell of Peter's spun-wool coat. "He's never taken you for so long. I wasn't expecting it to be you, today."

"If you had, you would have chosen someplace more romantic?"

Peter almost-laughs again, and relinquishes his hold on Elias. "I missed you, Eli."

"How many times," he seethes, sentimentality already forgotten, "do I have to tell you _not_ to call me that?"

Peter laughs properly this time, a big, booming thing that comes from his chest, far more jovial than a laugh belonging to the High Lord of the Forsaken Court has any right to be. "I missed you doing that, too!"

Elias softens, pushes Peter's shoulder, but there's no real malice in it. He's exhausted, and Peter is right; he's never been away for so long. The stretches between stays are growing shorter and shorter still, and Elias has to fight for even those few days of free breath.

For a moment they stand there, surrounded by the cold and the wet, and the siren song which has grown louder, just looking at each other. Elias misses looking at Peter. He misses a lot of things he can't have.

"Why did you bring me here?" he asks, because he knows that the quicker this ends, the less it will hurt. Peter's expression doesn't change, but his eyes do; they lose their spark, and Elias feels wretched, but he can live with that.

"It's Martin," Peter says. "He's found his way out of the Fog. The Distortion found him."

"Ah," is all Elias says. He knows he should be glad; certainly, the part of him that is not him is. "Well, I suppose that's good for us, isn't it."

"For him, maybe," Peter mutters darkly. A seagull lands on the railway and watches them, head cocked, until Elias glares at it, at which point it flies off again. "You, not so much so."

"Peter, we've been over this a hundred times—" he starts, but Peter cuts him off.

"Elias, listen," he pleads, "stay here. Stay in my Court. We'll figure something out, we always do, don't we? We'll find a way to cut him out of the equation. You can be _whole_ again, plans be damned." At some point during this speech, he's taken Elias' hands in his own, clasping them to his heart. "Don't go back."

"Peter," he starts, and does not continue.

"Just stay here. We'll figure something out."

"And if we don't?" he asks, words coming out harsher than he meant; Peter flinches, ever so slightly. "If we can't figure something out, what then? You know I'm not all in control when he's there. You know what I can do when I'm myself, and you know I can do worse still when he's present. Don't be foolish. I know you're anything but, but you seem to abandon logic when it comes to this . . . situation." He tugs his hands free of Peter's, and is disappointed when he's met with little resistance.

The Tower creaks around them, the waves crash against the cliffside like thunderous applause. Peter's eyes are miniature whirlpools, fathoms-deep. You could get lost in those eyes, like drowning in the summertime, like the moment just before the last punch in a brawl. 

"Right," Peter says, and his voice is hoarse. He clears his throat. "Right, you're right. You're always right." Inhale, exhale. "Can I kiss you?"

Elias lets out a shuddering breath. There's a distinct difference between Peter kissing him now, in this moment, while he is as close to himself as he can get and when he kisses Elias when he is an afterthought in his own head. There's a difference, because the only time Peter kisses him _then_ is when Elias asks him to fuck him.

"Why do you do this to yourself, Peter?" he asks, and he doesn't object as Peter takes his hand, doesn't object as he crosses the space between them. "Because you know I won't deny you? Because you know it will hurt?"

"Because I love you," Peter says simply, and Elias closes his eyes just when Peter brings his mouth down to his. It's soft and slow (hot and desperate, the self-loathing evident in Peter's eyes as he does as Elias commands, kissing him with all the fervor and none of the rest of it), his lips achingly gentle (sometimes careless enough to draw blood, eager to get the ordeal over with, knowing he won't say no the next time, either), his free hand wrapping around Elias' back, pulling him in, pulling him closer (never wanting to hold on for too long). He pulls back, and the difference is painfully obvious, because Peter actually looks him in the eyes.

"Do it again," Elias says, and he shouldn't still be surprised by his own stunning capacity for self-betrayal because he's had his whole life to get used to it. "Do it again, Peter."

Peter does. Peter kisses him like it's a ritual, like it's the last time he will ever get to do it again. Elias is glad for it. He knows that, eventually, he will have to be the one to pull away, to leave, but for now, he is content to kiss Peter Lukas and pretend that there is nothing else in the world apart from the softness of his mouth, the solidness of his body. He is content to ignore the fact that sooner rather than later he will have to pull away, will have to return to the estate, back to his plotting and planning and, inevitably, back to being a half of himself, a washed-out imitation. He is content to lose himself in Peter's kisses for as long as he is allowed.

It's never very long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading, and stay tuned for next time, featuring: jonagnes friendship fun, ultimate wingman helen, and elias making things harder for everybody :)


	18. twists and turns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Jon finds the heart of the maze.** Featuring: a twisting, a finding, the prerequisite for a bargain.
> 
> ( _Or: In every story, there is a twisting._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for general horror movie nonsense, I guess.
> 
> The song(s) for this chapter are _Adelaide's Trap_ and _You Have Beautiful Eyes_ by The Blasting Company, from the _Over The Garden Wall_ soundtrack.

Compared to The Lonely, Helen's bland hallway is literally paradise.

But there's still one thing up in the air.

"Why are you helping me?" he asks. His voice is still kind of flat, too quiet, but it's getting better. He's still freezing cold, though.

The not-woman — Helen — looks frighteningly normal right now, but it isn't lost on him that whenever they pass a mirror, her image contorts into something angular and too-bright. "Is it not enough to want to help a friend of a friend?" she purrs.

Martin frowns and says, "No."

"Congratulations! That is the correct answer!" Her voice echoes, doubles and triples over on itself, and her smile is sharp enough to cut.

"How did you . . ." he tries to find a way to explain what he means; he isn't used to putting his thoughts into words. "How did you know—"

"Word gets around down here," Helen says enigmatically. "I heard that you'd managed to get yourself trapped. Again. And of course, if there is anything I love doing, it is helping others." She laughs. It's not a pleasant laugh. It's borderline maniacal, something like nails on a blackboard, something like a screech. It hurts his ears.

"So you really wanted to help me?"

Helen shrugs, her shoulders going up (and up, and up). "Yes," she concedes.

Martin thinks about this for a few seconds and then says: "I don't think I believe you."

They pass another mirror, and again he catches a glimpse of that twisting reflection. "Why not?"

"Because you're a liar," he says. "You're — what did Jon say? _The throat of delusion incarnate_? You're that."

"So if I told you that I was here to hurt you, Martin Blackwood," she asks, and her fingers don't really look like fingers anymore, they're elongated, knife-like, "would you believe I was there to rescue you instead?"

"No."

"Then believe what you'd like to believe. I am simply doing what I want to do."

"Look," Martin says quietly. "Just drop me off somewhere. I'll find my own way, and you can go back to doing whatever it is you do when you're not harassing people."

Helen looks like she is enjoying this exchange very much. "Martin Blackwood, I would have thought you'd be jumping for joy at this opportunity. I have provided you an escape route, and have done so in the past, have I not?" Her teeth shouldn't be that white, should they be?

"Yes," he admits, picking at his nails. "But you had a motive, then. You owed Jon a favour. You don't owe _me_ anything."

"But do I really _need_ to have a motive?" she says with a dramatic sigh. "Is it not enough to simply want to help?

"Yeah. You do." He's getting tired of this conversation, and his head is starting to hurt from looking at Helen, who doesn't look so normal anymore. She's glitching.

"I do have one, you know," she says after another stretch of quiet walking. "A motive, that is."

"What is it, then?"

Helen heaves a dramatic sigh (she's fond of her theatrics, this distorted woman) and says, "I am helping you because I don't want good old Magnus to get what he wants."

He wasn't expecting that. "Who?"

For the first time, Helen looks something other than amused. "Oh, did I spoil something? Whoopsie. I meant _Elias_. Don't say anything," she says, because Martin has just opened his mouth to ask just what it is, exactly, that Elias wants beyond his house, "you'll find out soon enough if it's anything important. Either way, I don't want to exist in a world where any of those insufferable know-it-alls reigns supreme. And so I am helping you because by helping you, I am also helping Jon, and by helping Jon, I am serving my own interests."

"Right," Martin says distantly, his mind going a hundred miles an hour. Who, exactly, is this Magnus, and why did Helen replace his name with Elias'? He was under the impression that all Elias wanted was his house, but now that he thinks about it, Elias never said what he wanted to _do with it_ if he got it.

"Look," Helen says, a bit impatiently, "I'm on your side for this one thing. So you don't have to worry about me stabbing you or anything fun like that." And to demonstrate, she raises her elongated hands in the air.

"How thoughtful," Martin says sourly. And then: "Where, exactly, are you taking me?" _Stupid, stupid, stupid, you should have asked that before!_

"Difficult to say," Helen says. Martin glares at her, which makes her laugh again, that same screeching, dragging sound. "The look on your face! Very well, Martin Blackwood, if all goes according to plan, this hallway should spit you out right into the Sims house, back into the arms of your beloved." She clasps her hands together and beams. "The happy couple, reunited at last!"

Martin feels his face go very hot. "I- It's not like that! We're just friends!"

Helen makes a noncommittal humming noise. "Oh, yes, _friends_ ," she says mischievously. "This whole situation just _radiates_ platonic vibes."

"It should," he says feebly. "Besides, I don't even know if Jon . . ." If Jon what? Is attracted to him? Swings his way? _Likes_ him, even as a friend? He lets the sentence die. And, hey, why is he even thinking any of this to begin with! Sure, Jon is, objectively speaking, an attractive man, even if he does perpetually look like he's running on less than two hours of sleep. And he can admit that he likes the sound of Jon's voice, and that he often finds himself staring at Jon's hands, and that he finds it hopelessly endearing when Jon goes on one of his little tangents, but that's all normal friends stuff! Even if he's never acted this way around Tim or Sasha, this is normal. He's not — in love with Jon, or whatever it is that Helen's implying with her simpering smile.

And okay, fine, maybe he has dreams where he whisks Jon away from this awful place and hides him away in a cozy cottage somewhere in the South Downs, but Jon's been through a lot and deserves a bit of peace! And maybe, _maybe_ he's thought about (possibly more than once) what it would be like to kiss Jon, but that's normal, right? Right?

He groans and covers his face with his hands.

"There, there," Helen says, not sounding even a little bit sympathetic. She starts to talk, an inane stream of chatter that washes over him like a wave of white noise. He's not really sure what she's talking about and honestly, he's been tuned out for far too long to even begin to understand, so he keeps his head down, focusing on taking step after step. If he does end up back in the house, his first order of motion will be to down an aspirin or maybe ten—

The hallway _twists_ and he's staring at a heavy oak door and—

"What's happening?" Helen asks sharply. "That shouldn't happen. I didn't do that."

The door opens—

" _No!_ "

And he falls.

* * *

"Right," Jon says, hands on his hips. "This is the last floor. If it's not here, it's nowhere."

( _Right_ , Jon says, hands on the book. _This is the last floor. If it's not here, it's nowhere._ )

"I'm sure it's here," Agnes says softly. "It has to be. I had a feeling that if it wasn't in the back shed it would be up here, somewhere."

They're in the attic, the crown of the house; they're both covered in dust and dirt from searching for the door all day (and yesterday, and the day before) and frankly, they're both exhausted. But this needs to be done. Jon has not come so far just to give up, even if he feels like he's going to be sick, even if he feels like it's still watching him. He hasn't been up here in the attic since he was eight and he—

Well.

Somewhere, at the core of Jon's being, there is a lockbox and inside of it is a secret more terrible than all the rest. And most days he is able to keep it down, is able to forget that it's there. Living in the Underhill works wonders that way: you can't spend time repressing memories if you're too busy spending every second of every day struggling to keep your head above the water. But here, in the attic, the box is shaking, and the secret is trying to get out,

and he won't let it.

"I'll take the left side and you can take the right?" Agnes suggests. Jon gives her a sharp nod, and they split. The attic is a little bit like a maze; clearly no one has been up here for years and years. It's a daunting task, looking through all this stuff for anything, any sort of clue.

They spend a few hours digging through boxes and looking under floorboards. Jon finds many things, most of them unexplainable and none of them relevant: something that looks suspiciously like a human femur, a heavy-looking wood table engraved with a hypnotic pattern reaching for the center, a box filled only with packing peanuts. Every once in a while Agnes will make a noise like maybe she's found something, but it's always a false alarm. Time drags on, and Jon realizes that he's getting kind of hungry.

"I'm going to grab something to eat," he announces. "I'll bring it upstairs. You need anything?"

"Grab me a tangerine, will you?" Agnes asks. Jon isn't sure if they even have tangerines, but he ducks out of the attic anyway, taking a deep breath of air that isn't cloying with dust and time and awful memories.

He's coming back upstairs with a (kind of soft) tangerine and a hastily-constructed sandwich when it happens. "I'm back," he announces, not looking where he's going, which is how he trips over something on the floor and goes sprawling.

"Ow," he groans, sitting up and dusting himself off. Agnes peeks out from behind a wall of boxes to assess the damage.

"You good?" she asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he mutters, mourning the loss of his sandwich. What did he even trip over? He checks.

"Agnes?" he calls, heart beating sickeningly in his chest. _It can't be here. It was way in the back._ "Come here."

Agnes does, standing over him, cotton dress streaked with dirt. "Yeah?" she asks.

"Look at this." He points at the previously-unseen divot in the wood, just the right size for someone to wedge their fingers into. And he _knows_ , without having to check, that there will be a spiderweb etched into the wood just above it.

She drops to her knees and brushes the dust and grime off the divot, searching fingertips patting the wood until they catch on something.

"It's a trapdoor," she says, hushed.

Jon's mouth has gone very, very dry. Agnes continues to feel along the crack she's found until they've both uncovered it: a trapdoor set into the floor, invisible unless you already know it's there (or, in Jon's case, literally stumble upon it) (or, in Jon's case, have opened it before). She looks up at him, smile hesitant but bright. "I think we've found a way to rescue your boyfriend."

Jon thinks that maybe they have.

Wait—

" _What_?"

"What what?" she asks, confused.

"Martin is _not_ my _boyfriend_!" he snaps, momentarily dragged out of his panic.

Agnes looks genuinely surprised. "He isn't?"

"No! Where did you get that from!"

She shrugs. "I don't know. Just the way you talk about him." Jon opens his mouth to say something, but she doesn't let him. "Listen, I've known you for about three days _maximum_ but I'd have to be pretty stupid not to notice the way your entire face lights up whenever you talk about him, you gremlin."

"Don't call me that," he says feebly. "And my face does not 'light up' when I talk about him. He's not my boyfriend."

"Okay, yeah, sure," Agnes says. "Whatever you say."

"He isn't!"

"Okay!" Agnes says, and then giggles, hiding her mouth behind her hand. Jon scowls at her, which only makes her giggle harder. And okay, it's kind of funny; he can't stop the small smile spreading on his face, watching her laugh.

Eventually, they both stop and just stare at the opening on the floor. "So we're really doing this, are we?" she asks.

"We? I thought I was going alone?" _Please, please let me be alone._

"What gave you that idea?"

Jon feels like he has missed something big. "I mean, our deal was that I would get you out of The Lonely if you would help me find this thing." And to emphasize his point, he raps his knuckles on the top of the trapdoor. "Both sides of the deal have been realized. You don't owe me anything more."

"Yes, but I'm not going to just let you go down there _alone_ , am I?" She crosses her arms. "You really think I'd abandon you like that?"

"Well . . . yes?"

She huffs out a breath, a furrow appearing between her eyebrows.. "Listen, Jonathan Sims," she says. "I'm not going to ditch you at what is probably the most important part of your little rescue operation. I'm going with you."

"But why?" he asks, genuinely confused.

"Because you're my friend, idiot," she snaps. There's a very long, weighted period of silence during which neither of them do anything but stare at each other.

"I'm your friend?" Jon asks, a bit stupidly. Agnes shoves his shoulder.

"Y-e-s," she says, drawing the word out. "Now come on. We have to save your boyfriend from the clutches of hell."

Jon hits her knee, which makes her giggle again.

Agnes thinks he's her friend.

There are worse things to be.

And now they have to deal with the trapdoor.

"You okay?" Agnes asks. "You look weirder than usual."

"I just—" He's staring at the tiny engraving, caught in its web again. Like it wasn't bad enough when he was eight, like it wasn't— "I've been here before," he blurts out. Agnes' brow furrows.

"What do you mean?"

"I've seen this trapdoor before. I've _opened_ this trapdoor before."

(He's nine years old and he wakes up and sees the screendoor open, sees the braided length of spider's silk trailing off to the edge of the garden and beyond, and notices the absence of a mother in the kitchen, and he knows, immediately, he _knows_.)

Agnes looks pallid in this strange light. Jon's hands are shaking.

_Knock, knock._

"Jon," Agnes says, very seriously. "This is the only place the door could be, to my knowledge. But if you know something, I need to know it, too. What's beneath this trapdoor?"

 _Only the thing that stole my mother. Only the thing that shoved the key to Fairy Hill into my hands._ "Have you ever read," he asks, " _A Guest For Mr. Spider_?"

"No, but spiders . . ."

"It's a storybook," Jon says, voice thick, "about a spider, obviously. And I read it when I was eight, and it lead me here." He pats the wood of the trapdoor. "I thought it was nothing. I thought it was just a fun little thing inside a fun little horror book for little children." He squeezes his eyes shut tight. "It wasn't."

 _Oh_ , Agnes mouths. And then: "What's on the other side of the door, Jon?"

"The Mother of Puppets."

"And you met her when you were _eight_?"

"What, like that's surprising? Honestly, I'm amazed that she doesn't exclusively go after children."

"Right," Agnes mutters. "But look on the bright side of things, Jonny. This thing might have traumatized you at a young age—" Jon laughs, startled. "— _but_ , the Jonny of today can _use_ this thing. It's a way in, just like what we were looking for."

Jon says nothing, just stares at the trapdoor. The lockbox is rattling, rattling. _She'll hate you if she finds out. She'll think you stupid and incompetent, she'll leave you in the dark._

"I think I should go alone," he says. "You can stay behind."

"I think we've already established that that's not going to happen." And Jon feels wretched because he knows that Agnes has just been brought out of an interminable abandonment and here he is, trying to abandon her once again, but he just—

"We can find another way," she says softly, ginger hair framing her face. "There's always another way. We can keep looking."

Jon sucks in a breath. "No," he says. "We'll go in through here."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

Agnes bites her lip.

"What?" he asks impatiently. "You were the one who was so gung-ho about using this thing."

"Yes, but Jon," she says. "I'm not asking you to — to re-traumatize yourself, or whatever. This place clearly messed you up really badly, and I don't want you to go in unless you're sure that that's a risk you're willing to take. And it _shouldn't_ be."

"I'm never sure about anything," Jon says simply. She's watching him closely, hands twisting nervously. "But I do know what I have to do. You're welcome to stay behind."

"I'm coming with you." And she reaches out her hand, a perfect reflection of what he did in The Lonely. Jon takes her hand, which is warm and kind of dry, and hopes that that will suffice, that he won't have to say what he feels: _Thank you, thank you, thank you._ "Do you want to do the honours?"

"Of course," Jon answers drily. She squeezes his hand, once, before Jon reaches out and knocks on the trapdoor. Once, twice, three times. "Knock, knock, Mr. Spider," he says, voice firm. The door creaks open slowly, theatrically; the gaping maw of a massive arachnid, and Agnes draws in a shuddering breath. Jon is eight years old again, unaware of what he's just done.

"Onwards, traveller," Agnes prompts, and they both step inside.

It's pitch-dark, Agnes' flaming fist heightening the unreality of their situation, and everything is exactly the same as it was when he was a kid, but then he'd been giddy with excitement, practically bouncing down the stairs, and he can't help but feel some measure of disgust for the naive, trusting thing that he was. Everything is the same. _Everything is the same._ The same echoey, twisty stairwell, the same spidery, angular iron bannister, the same lush red carpet on the stairs as they wind down

and down

and down

and down.

Neither of them says anything, because that would be wrong, that would be blasphemous. They walk in silence, Jon's calves aching from the sheer length of the stairwell. His hand is really sweaty, but Agnes doesn't let go, not until they reach the bottom of the stairwell, which is in a small, cinderblock room with a small, innocuous door.

"Are you ready," she asks.

"As I'll ever be. Yourself?"

She gives him a grim sort of nod, and Jon shoots her a smile. "Excellent," he says, and pushes the door open, trying not to think of what he knows will be beyond.

The room beyond is different. It takes his breath away: it's a workshop of sorts, but there's no furniture. There are shelves and shelves and shelves, all piled with _puppets_.

Some of them are sickeningly realistic, faces of men and women and children eased into placid, wooden expressions, and others are stranger still; little creatures made of blown glass, porcelain and plastic and metal and wood. Jon averts his eyes, but Agnes seems unable to.

"Wow," she whispers. "That is . . . disturbing."

"It's not what it was like last time," Jon says. "I don't know what's happening."

Agnes' mouth twists thoughtfully, and Jon's gaze drops to the floor, which is how he sees it.

"Agnes," he hisses. "Look." There's a path marked on the floor, a small black arrow pointing to a break in the wall of watching puppets that had been previously unnoticed. Now that Jon pays attention, he can see much more than initially met the eye — like, beneath each puppet is a sticker bearing a name, the handwriting spindly and angular: _Richard Wright, Nnamabia Odichie, Meera Sarkar._ There's the sound of an old radio from somewhere up ahead, the crackly buzz of someone singing softly out of the speakers, alongside a smooth, rhythmic scraping sound.

"Should we go check it out?"

" _Obviously_ ," Agnes grins. "Come on, Jon. Let's go save your boyfriend."

Jon elbows her, and they start walking. The path is twisty, leading them on a seemingly random series of lefts and rights, the music on the radio growing clearer the more they walk. The closer they get to what Jon is thinking of as the epicenter of the puppet-room, the scraping grows louder, alongside the sound of a woman humming along to the music. And Jon recognizes that voice, obviously; even after so long. They round a final corner and there it is: a small workman's table shoved up against a wall. The wall in front of it is hung with tools, a small, bare lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. The woman seated at the table turns when she comes into their vision like she'd been waiting, and _nothing has changed_.

Jon's heart is beating too-fast in his chest.

The light glints off the spiderwebs lacing the side of her head together as she smiles. Agnes knocks her hand against his.

"Hello, Jonathan Sims," Annabelle Cane grins. "I was beginning to think that you'd forgotten about me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helen, watching this story unfold from her weird hallways, eating popcorn: JUST KISS ALREADY
> 
> tysm for reading! tune in next time for annabelle cane's murder mystery invite only casual dinner party / gala for friends potluck


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